We've been working with ASP.Net MVC2 based web app. We're using DataAnnotations for model validation and we've also implemented some of our own validation attributes. All is working good and the user gets the error summary (if any) after postback. Now, we plan to migrate to MVC3 in near future but meanwhile, we want to make the most out of jQuery & AJAX based validations.
Note that we've not been using any MS libraries for AJAX or validation available with MVC prjects. Our approach is to keep things as simple & clean as possible so we've been using pure jQuery based plugins. We want to enable client-side validation & remote validation using jQuery for which I believe jquery-plugin-validation is one of the best alternatives. It also supports remote validations.
Example:
http://weblogs.asp.net/cibrax/archive/2008/08/01/combining-jquery-validation-with-asp-net-mvc.aspx
Automation:
APPROACH #1: Here it is mentioned that using "MicrosoftMvcJQueryValidation.js"will automate these validations - any comments?
APPROACH #: Here's another approach which seems to provide even more automation using jQuery DataAnnotations - any comments?
If I'm on the right track kindly based on your experience let me know which approach is better.
Further, is it true that this approach will help us migrate the validations easily as we migrate to MVC3.
Example:
http://develoq.net/2011/asp-net-mvc-3-remote-validation-with-jquery/
Any better suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
PS: In any case we'll persist the model level validations.
In MVC3 you are able to rely solely on the jquery.validate.js library for validation (which is included by default), you do not need any ms specific libraries anymore (like MicrosoftMvcJQueryValidation.js or others, you CAN use them however).
Here is a simple blog post explaining how to use it, even going a step further and doing it unobtrusive:
http://geekswithblogs.net/stun/archive/2011/01/28/aspnet-mvc-3-client-side-validation-summary-with-jquery-validation-unobtrusive-javascript.aspx
On a second note:
The ASP.NET MVC 4 Beta was released a couple of days ago with a "go live" license, if you have not started to migrate I would recommend you to consider using MVC4 instead. It runs side by side with MVC 3, so you wont break anything by installing.
You can find the release notes here:
http://www.asp.net/whitepapers/mvc4-release-notes
And download it here:
http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc4
I strongly suggest that you wait until you migrate to a newer version. Anything you write in regards to validation will have to be rewritten for MVC3/4, so why waste the effort? I'd suggest that you invest your effort into upgrading and utilize the unobtrusive validation in MVC3 (or 4 as ntziolis suggests).
Related
I am thinking of using upshot.js along with Knockout in one of my very important projects. I do not see any documentation or any activity around upshot. Before I commit to this decision, is this project still active?
If the entire asp.net stack is now open and one can see what is getting committed to repository, why this small library is still not on codeplex or github for community to see?
I hope this is still on radar of asp.net team.
According to this blog post, Upshot is officially dead:
http://www.riaservicesblog.net/Blog/post/WCF-RIA-Services-is-Dead-Long-Live-WCF-RIA-Services.aspx
The author points to BreezeJS as an alternative:
http://www.breezejs.com
Upshot is officially dead.
"Earlier this year the Beta version of Visual Studio 2012 included a template that was designed for building “single page applications” using Upshot.js and a special Web API-based DataController that provided support for insert, update, and delete operations using the unit of work pattern with transaction support. We are not currently continuing work on that template or Upshot.js. We want to first focus on improving the development experience with existing popular JavaScript libraries and in future versions we will revisit this decision and see if additional libraries are needed to round out the SPA experience."
http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Roadmap
Give a shot to JayData at http://jaydata.org, it has JavaScript Language Query and JavaScript CRUD capabilities with change tracking, batches and a lot more. What it offers over BreezeJS is its provider agnostic architecture and a number of providers that you can use out of the box: OData, webSQL, IndexedDB, localStore, Facebook and YQL.
JayData plays nicely with NodeJS and let you consume OData from a JavaScript based middletier.
Also you can use JayData not only to consume but also to provide OData if you are using it on the server side with NodeJS and mongoDB.
The ASP.NET team haven't finished the official release of ASP.NET SPA in time to ship with the final ASP.NET MVC 4 release but they are still working on it.
You can find the source code for ASP.NET SPA and follow the development effort on the ASP.NET CodePlex site:
ASP.NET SPA Source Code (to look at the upshot stuff click Browse and expand src/SPA/upshot
ASP.NET SPA Discussions
The general lack of documentation is caused by the fact that there haven't be an official release yet.
Speaking for my company - we used exactly the same combination (Knockout + Upshot) and after sweating a lot of blood, we decided to get rid of Upshot and replace it with JQuery's ajax calls. Much more transparent and much more bugfree. However, much more code, too.
Back in February the authors of Upshot promised they would put documentation on in a week or so and since then I've heard nothing of them. If you want my opinion, I think this project has already been buried or indefinitely postponed.
Accodding to what is said on the discussions(see http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/discussions/topics/5321/asp-net-single-page-application) on SPA, the whole SPA strategy would change, so I think the final version o SPA or whatever will replace it will be quite different from the actual bits...so I don't know if it is a good move continuing using the actual version...that at my bets knowledge is not compatible with Mvc 4 RTM.
I am the author of the Mvc Controls Toolkit there we implemented some js functions to help querying OData, and to update entitiess that are on the client side. They handle validation errors(both client side and server side), return to client principal keys created on the server, do changes tracking (to send to the server just changed entities) and allows undoing changes done on the client side. They handle also one to many relations. Moreover, updates are handled not only with WebApi controllers but also with normal controllers.
Give a look to this first tutorial: http://dotnet-programming.com/post/2012/04/03/Mvc-Controls-Toolkit-Support-to-Mvc4-WebApi.aspx
and then refer to the other tutorilas linked.
I'm thinking of two options right now for model-base validation for an ASP.net project I'm starting:
xVal (Steve Sanderson's project) and the Enterprise module that Stephen Walther uses on this page
I don't really know enough to talk about the preferences as I haven't used either of them yet. Any ideas?
Update Using LinqToSql for ORM right now, but am open to changes.
One difference I see in reviewing the two is that Stephen Walther's blog post describes a library which does only validation in the Web server, where as xVal works with jQuery validators to do in-browser validation, as well. This feature, incidentally, is almost completely automatic.
FluentValidation is nice. NHibernate also has built in model validation. Then you need something like Scott Guthrie's technique for binding errors to the UI.
I've been using xVal to and i have integrated it into the IDataErrorInfo interface introduced into MVC RC1. I like it.
Here is a post I wrote which explains a few things.
http://schotime.net/blog/index.php/2009/03/05/validation-with-aspnet-mvc-xval-idataerrorinfo/
Hope this helps.
Shamelessly promote my validation library. Built for jQuery validate & Enterprise Library and work out of the box for just that. That said, functionality and code are simple enough to modify/extend if you want.
You could also check out this new technique on LosTechies http://www.lostechies.com/blogs/hex/archive/2009/06/10/opinionated-input-builders-for-asp-net-mvc-part-5-the-required-input.aspx I like the fact that you inputs are setup globaly which is really DRY. Also you could just skip the client side validation and do an jquery ajax submit form to the server, which performs validation model and business logic all in one place, which is also DRY :) Also it means you will get the product out the door quicker and you can add client side validation later as a bonus or to progressively enhance the forms.
Another vote for xVal. It's real sweet. I like using Buddy Classes and DataAnnotations to do the validation lifting. Outside of making things work with Linq2Sql as you cannot add attributes to your fields, buddy classes give one a bit of flexibility to have multiple models share the same validation info. Comes in real handy for those ModelEditData classes that seem to always become neccessary.
Are you using an ORM? If so, which one are you using? I've had a lot of luck, when using Castle ActiveRecord, simply sticking with their default model-level validation. If you're not using that, though, this is probably not too helpful. :-)
There have been plenty of questions on MVC validation but so far the answer has been pretty much inconclusive.
For my needs in particular, I would like something that generates client validation and server validation from the same description and should allow both model based attributes as well as code based declarations for those using an ORM (e.g. LINQ TO SQL) exclusively.
I have seen some validation packs that have been whipped up to do this but they tend to introduce a lot of dependencies or are reasonably incomplete (e.g. no support for check boxes or no "higher-level" validation).
Do we begin writing our own validation framework or do we wait in hope that the team may actually release something now that they have the structure for validation in place and jQuery on board?
For those out there actually using MVC in the field now what are you using for validation?
Are you aware that validation semantics have been added in preview 5? This article from Scott Gu describes how to use it, and this one details the changes in the beta.
I have not personally used it, and it may not fit all your requirements, but I have no doubt it could be extended to behave like you want.
The best way as of the released MVC 1.0 is to use xVal.
You may also need to look at this post on implementing Linq2SQL with xVal in case that hasn't been resolved/doesn't work.
I am wondering what methods people are using for validating check boxes in ASP.NET MVC (both client and server side).
I am using JQuery currently for client side validation but I am curious what methods people are using, ideally with the least amount of fuss (I am looking for a new solution).
I should mention that I am currently using MVC Preview 4, and while I could upgrade to MVC Preview 5 if there is no elegant solution in MVC Preview 4, I would prefer not to at this stage just for compatibility purposes with other developers and existing solutions.
Note, I have seen these related posts:
Validating posted form data in the
ASP.NET MVC framework
What’s the best way to implement field validation using ASP.NET MVC?
MVC.net JQuery Validation
If you go on to the validation website and download the whole package that included the demo files, you can find the one with example of validating check boxes and radio buttons.
The link is here:
http://jquery.bassistance.de/validate/jquery.validate.zip
I assume you simply check whether or not the name of the checkbox was posted to the server or not. Not being an ASP coder myself, I can't help, though this is how it would be done in PHP (of course, depending on how you map validations).
<?php echo isset($_POST['checkbox_name']) ? 'checked' : 'not checked'; ?>
I'm trying to decide what validation approach to take for a new ASP.NET MVC project. (And wow there are plenty of options!)
The project uses NHibernate, so the first thing I considered was the NHibernate Validator (Because of tight integration with NHibernate). However, as far as I can see there are only a couple of benefits to this tight integration:
1) DB Schemas generated by NHibernate will include details of validation (e.g. column lengths will be set to max value allowed in validation). (This is not really of interest to me though, as I generate schemas manually.)
2) NHibernate will throw an exception if you try to save data that doesn't meet the validation specs. (This seems fairly redundant to me, since the data presumably will already be validated by whatever mechanism you choose before saving anyway)
If there are more benefits to NHibernate Validator please let me know!
Other libraries which I've been reading a little about include:
MS DataAnnotations
Castle Validator
Something else?
I've also been thinking about using xVal to provide client side validation from the same set of rules. However, I hear that ASP.NET MVC v2 will include something similar to xVal (integration with jquery) out of the box? Will this new included functionality render some of the others redundant?
So, I'm basically asking for people's advice on which direction to take here. I don't want to implement a particular scheme, only to have to rip it out when another one becomes the dominant tech.
What has worked for you? Which option do you think has/will have the edge?
Thanks!
I have been using FluentValidation along with jQuery validation plugin and still cannot find a situation they cannot handle.
I like xVal.
You can implement very easily client and server validation with it. Also there is support for column (property) validation on entities that you would like to use.
DataAnnotations implemented by buddy classes and JQuery client validation
Make sure you're using MVC Preview 2
You might be interested in this delegate approach. I was because i didn't like the xVal idea (the solution im currently going with) and the fact that it didn't seem to cater for complex validation cases that crossed multiple properties of the same or even different class structures.