Umbraco Data Insert - umbraco

I am working on a Umbraco CMS 5 project. I have two Questions:
How to add Controller for a existing View?
Can Data be inserted in Umbraco Database? In example If someone submit his/her information in a webpage then Data will be saved in Umbraco Database(Umbraco.sdf).

Create a controller in the controllers folder of your project.
Create an action method in that controller with return type
ActionResult.
Do your manipulations in that action method and
then return the view path like return View("~/Views/Umbraco/Your
view name.cshtml");
You can create your own custom table in the umbraco.sdf with the columns you need and can submit your information using Sql or linq(if you create an entity).

Related

Creating and Editing related entities from a ASP.NET MVC web form

I'm creating a ASP.NET MVC 4 web app with a database and Entity Framework 5 for a web form to maintain Document (aka Contract) entries.
Below is a sample ERD (in the form of edmx diagram with navigational properties) I have created for a DB in SQL server. For MVC web app the Model is generated from the DB with .edmx file.
Based on the Model, I have setup a form which can create and edit a Document like so:
Document Create and Edit View
This view refers to Document model class. So all the input fields using html helper (Html.TextBoxFor...,etc) are referred from Document object and its related objects (Section 1 & Section 2). The checkbox hides and shows the subform for a section with JS/jQuery. For the Edit view I use same as Create view, except it contains additional hidden ID fields to identity the records to edit from the DB.
I have added a variable length list for section item addition by following this:
http://blog.stevensanderson.com/2010/01/28/editing-a-variable-length-list-aspnet-mvc-2-style/
In the partial view for the items dynamic list I use Section1Item and Section2Item as model reference.
Document Controller's Create method
So on Create the document object posted in Create(...) method contains all the attributes from the Document including the section's attributes.
If the checkbox value for Section 1 & Section 2 are false then I set the Document's Section 1 & Section 2 to null like so:
if (section1_chkbox == false) {
document.Section1 = null;
}
I have to add each item from the dynamic list into the document object like so:
foreach(Section1Item item in itemsList) {
document.Section1.Section1Items.Add(item);
}
So finally the Create method in the DocumentController adds the document in a db context and saves changes. The document and its related entities are successfully added to database tables.
Document Controller's Edit method
But when I'm editing the document with the Edit method in DocumentController there are some inconsistencies with some section1 object's ID being null for some related objects in Section1Items. For example when Section1Items are present the posted Document object (for edit) does not contain reference to Section 1 object's ID.
So it is fiddly and messy to update an existing document record as I'm having to check the ID attributes of a object. There are always errors like inconsistent principal and dependent objects in the relationship when saving or setting the object's entry state to modified.
My Question
How can I setup the View and Controller to achieve a functioning Create and Edit of a document along with its related entities as in the form's interface able? I need a efficient and correct way to use Entity Framework for this. How can I use view models for this if that would make this easier?
From what you described here I understand that there is a problem with virtual reference to Section1 from Section1Items. So in other words the problem is that entity framework model doesn't suit you display needs. You would need to render duplicated entities to map entier Document in your view. Am I right?
If that's the case I see two solutions:
like you suggested use view models to solve the problem. If you confirm the issue I can try to write example view model.
serialzie/encrypt entier Document in your view and next merge edited result with encrypted Document. You can achive that by using Mvc3Futures feature.
Serialize and encrypt your document in view:
#Html.Serialize("Document", Model, SerializationMode.EncryptedAndSigned)
And to deserialzie and decrypt you can use:
public ActionResult Edit(string id,[Deserialize(SerializationMode.EncryptedAndSigned)]Document document)

Updating Views when Model is modified

Just wondering if it is possible to update views connected to a model in ASP.NET MVC.
I am using Entity Framework database first which creates a .edmx object model for the solution.
I have created a new scaffolding model based on the model, which created:
Create.cshtml
Delete.cshtml
Details.cshtml
Edit.cshtml
Index.cshtml
If I add a property in the model, how can I update those views automatically with the new property to represent the updated model in the UI?
As explained in Changing the Database : The Official Microsoft ASP.NET Site:
To update the views you have two options - you can either re-generate the views by once again adding scaffolding for the Student class, or you can manually add the new property to your existing views. In this tutorial, you will add the scaffolding again because you have not made any customized changes to the automatically-generated views. You might consider manually adding the property when you have made changes to the views and do not want to lose those changes.
To ensure the views are re-created, first delete the Student folder under Views. Then, right-click the Controllers folder and add scaffolding for the Student model. Again, name the controller StudentController. When you click Add, you will be asked if you want to replace the existing file named StudentController. Select OK.
The views now contain the [added] MiddleName property.
Note this will apparently also overwrite your controller. Be sure to have a backup and use source control.

Passing data from controller superclass to view?

I'm writing an Asp.net MVC application (my first MVC app). I need to pass data to the _Layout view to customize the header and footer on my pages - which user is logged in, if they have any notifications, etc. The _Layout page always needs this information, but the child pages do not.
How should I pass this data to the view? Can I create a LoggedInUser property that the view can access, in the same way there is a Model and ViewBag? LoggedInUser could be populated by the base controller class.
Or is there a better way to implement this?
If you're using MembershipProvider and/or RoleProvider you can do as webdeveloper pointed out to get the identity of the current user User.Identity.Name, if showing it's name is what you want.
Also you could type your _layout to use a specific model, but I don't recommend it. See this question's answer for further details.
Lastly you could populate a ViewBag property on your controllers to have the user information you need.
I wanted to point out that you could do a partial view to achieve this, and avoid _layout typing and populating the ViewBag on each request.
To detect authentication:
User.Identity.IsAuthenticated
Then you can use sections ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts and Sections with Razor or/and #Html.RenderAction (Html.RenderAction and Html.Action)

in asp.net mvc what's a clean way to create an entity from the 'create' view of another entity?

I am trying to come up with a clean design for this -
I am using MVC to process orders, so I have an 'order' entity, with its own controller and views.
From the Create Order view I would like the user to add a 'Customer' entity. I have a controller and CRUD operations for 'customer'.
When someone creates a new Order I would like them to either
1) enter a customer name to see if that customer already exists, and if so, add that Customer to the Order, or
2) Create a new Customer then add that new Customer to the Order.
My problem is I am not sure of a good way to access the Customers from within the Order.
-do I create a partial view for Create Customer, then use that view in the Customer Create AND Order Create?
-then would I create a partial view 'SearchCustomers' that passes params to an action on Customer controller and that returns results? Would I be able to reuse this across the site?
You can see I am not sure about a few things - are partial views the way to reuse things? can partial views be reused across controllers and access different controllers from the ones theyre in?
I have gone through an MVC book and online tutorials but they all seem to use beginner examples, where Model objects don't contain other Model objects.
Thanks for help
Views never "access controllers".
The flow is:
Controller Action Method -> Creates View Model -> Hands it off to a View -> View displays it -> View can pass sub-models on to other partial views
Decomposing everything into smaller models and partial views (or using Editor templates) is a good approach. You can then assemble those smaller models into a larger view model for a complete page, or you can use the ViewBag to assemble them in a non-strongly typed manner.

ASP.NET MVC generic view for displaying data

I am working on a project involves exposing many data entities (more than 200) through an ASP.NET MVC application.
I do not want to write views for every entity mode and I am wondering if there is a way of having one generic view to display different models (for example, a view which reads the model properties(metadata) and generates a HTML table to display a list of entities.
If you only need to display, you can write your own generic renderer in few minutes using reflection. Or, you can use ModelVisualizer from MvcContrib, or Grid from MvcContrib which can do Html.Grid(Model).AutoGenerateColumns() to automatically show properties as columns. It doesn't support DataAnnotations or attributes, but you can write your own extension method that will use reflection to generate Grid's columns based on some attributes. And you can quickly turn this grid into jqGrid using jqGrid's tableToGrid() method.
If you need input support, there're several choices:
MvcContrib's InputBuilder (here you can see a simple example on how it's done with reflection)
MVC v2 InputFor(), I think it supports rendering several properties, but I'm not sure.
My solution does read metadata (attributes) from view models and generates jqGrid formatting and editing options automatically.
There should be commercial tools, too.
Two choices:
Dynamic Data Project
Have you tried Asp.net Dynamic data project that can automagically create what you need?
Asp.net MVC
But if you want to do what you're asking, you can always create a single view that will not have a strong type model. You will always pass data to it ViewData dictionary. The view would then parse that data and display what's required.
Routing
You can always create these two routes:
routes.MapRoute(
"EntityRoute",
"{entityName}",
new {
controller = "Entity",
action = "Display",
entityName = "SomeDefaultEntity" }
);
routes.MapRoute(
"EntityRoute",
"{entityName}/{recordId}",
new {
controller = "Entity",
action = "Details",
entityName = "SomeDefaultEntity",
recordId = string.Empty }
);
that will redirect all requests to the same controller action that will provide correct entity set data and pass it into the ViewData dictionary and return the view that will consume it. The second one will display details of a certain record within some entity (in case you need to provide master/details functionality).
MVC Contrib has Model Visualizer which let you display a Model by reflecting its properties. That a no go if you need any performance at all, but maybe it gets you started.

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