After building my application in ASP.NET MVC and MS sql server, I would now like to display some statistics regarding my data.
What would be the easiest way to create HTML reports which are built of data crossing several tables? (Once the fields are picked they'll be static, meanning a single view is required)
I though their ought to be something in the lines of a wizard letting you drag fields from your tables to a form and generates the logic behind...
I wrote a blog post about this in September. It's a way to render a PDF content type using an RPT file in the application. It covers everything except the creation of the RDLC file, including how to write unit tests for the controller.
Microsoft Reporting Services?
"I though their ought to be something in the lines of a wizard letting you drag fields from your tables to a form and generates the logic behind..." - this is the basic idea behind ASP.NET WebForms. But, please do not abandon MVC in favour of WebForms.
One way to achieve what you want is to create a class representing your stats, e.g.
public class Statistic
{
public string TableName { get; set; }
public int RowCount { get; set; }
}
Your Model code could populate an IList<Statistic> instance which is passed to your View, which renders the stats accordingly.
You could take a look at Dynamic Data .... http://www.asp.net/dynamicdata
Related
I'm in the process of refitting a website that I'd previously built using ASP.net with VB in the code-behind, into MVC with VB so that it's more responsive to different screen sizes and device types.
So far I've been able to replicate six of the pages plus the Site.Master files. Now I'm turning my attention to the Contact page which in asp.net takes data from a form, validates it for completion and data-type compliance and then passes it to the code-behind which uses it to generate an email.
I've done quite a lot of reading which suggests using a Model but all the examples I've found then use that Model to populate or query a database using LINQ.
How can I do this without a database?
The M in MVC stands for Model, not Mdatabase. You can use whatever you want as the model. Most applications use a database and most .NET applications use EF to access a database (or at least Microsoft want it that way) but you can use whatever you want.
Using a database engine is recommended as permanent storage, but essentially you can create model class for contact page without involving a database like this:
public class Contact
{
[Required]
public String Name { get; set; }
[Required]
public String EmailAddress { get; set; }
}
And you can use LINQ/lambda expressions after wrapping your model class into a collection (e.g. List), as example:
var list = new List<Contact>();
list.Add(new Contact { ... }); // adding items to the list
// Lambda syntax
var name = list.Select(x => x.Name); // returns a value from the list
// LINQ syntax
var email = (from item in list
select item.EmailAddress);
Then you can convert the code-behind logic to a controller action method as ActionResult each for GET and POST request. Afterwards, Redirect, RedirectToAction or simply return View() after data submission can be used for page handling.
About responsive page design to work with different screen sizes and device types, MVC itself not designed to present responsive layouts by default. You need to alter some HTML & CSS-related attributes, as similar problem here:
How to make an MVC web application adjust to automatically fit different screen sizes
NB: Since your problem doesn't include any code, the provided codes are just examples as figure to what should be done.
I am working on multi-language enabled mvc application. I have a translation table in database, which I bring on application start and save it in application memory.
The database structure is {TextId, LanguageId, Translation}. TextId is assigned to each UI element (like label, validators, dropdown list text, etc.). There is an admin interface to manage the translation text.
I want to know what is a good way to show translated text on UI, and where is the best place to do the actual translation. I do not want to use the resource manager, since the database is being used in other Asp & Asp.Net webforms applications.
Here is the model (for example)
public class UserLoginModel
{
[Required(ErrorMessage="ER001")]
[Range(6,10,ErrorMessage="ER002")]
[Display(Description="TX001", Name="TX002")]
public string LoginId { get; set; }
[Required(ErrorMessage="ER003"), DataType(DataType.Password)]
public string Password { get; set; }
public bool RememberMe { get; set; }
}
Language Id will be in Session["LanguageId"], and TranslationText is in Application variable.
Models reside in separate project, hence there is not direct access to session, but I can use DI (don't know whether it is a good practice!)
Here are following things I was considering:
Write Html helper extension like #Html.TranslateText("TX001"). I started with this method, but soon realized that #Html.ValidationMessage accepts only one message, irrespective of multiple validator attributes on property. I cannot use EditorFor templates either.
Use javascript to replace text ids with appropriate messages
Use reflection on model and replace text ids for attributes.
I am leaning towards option 3, by extending ModelMetadataProvider, or writing action filter attribute, or in EditorForModel template.
I am very confused on how to proceed. I am still in process of learning MVC. Hence. I would like to ask experts on how to handle this problem in best possible way.
Thanks,
I am working on a new project, and, after seeing some of the difficulties of previous projects that didn't provide enough separation of view from their models (specifically using MVC - the models and views began to bleed into each other a bit), I wanted to use MVVM.
I understand the basic concept, and I'm excited to start using it. However, one thing that escapes me a bit - what data should be contained in the ViewModel?
For example, if I am creating a ViewModel that will encompass two pieces of data so they can be edited in a form, do I capture it like this:
public PersonAddressViewModel {
public Person Person { get; set; }
public Address Address { get; set; }
}
or like this:
public PersonAddressViewModel {
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public string StreetName { get; set; }
// ...etc
}
To me, the first feels more correct for what we're attempting to do. If we were doing more fine grain forms (maybe all we were capturing was FirstName, LastName, and StreetAddress) then it might make more sense to go down to that level. But, I feel like the first is correct since we're capturing ALL Person data in the form and ALL Address data. It seems like it doesn't make sense (and a lot of extra work) to split things apart like that.
Appreciate any insight.
If you are using all the fields of the Person object, then there's nothing wrong with using a complex view model. However, if you are only using a field here or there, then it's much better to build your viewmodel with only those values you are using.
You can do your view models any way you like, but the whole point of having them is that a view model should be customized to the view it's representing.
It can also be a lot easier to use the first method if you're using something like AutoMapper to map to business or domain models, because the objects should have similar definitions.
You're not using MVVM. You're defining ViewModels, classes for only view purposes in order to avoid to break the Model classes. In that case you can define the properties you want for your best profit. In the example I will go for the second solution but it's up to you.
I'm working on a big project with many developer providers. In that case the customer let us to define the ViewModels that we want keeping the Models (Business Entities as they call) for their concern. Because we are different groups no one is worried about another ViewModels so you can even use one class for one view, no matter if another view is different a little bit from the first one. That's one of the advantages of ViewModels instead of pure Model using.
I prefer to define the ViewModels in client-side through JSON objects for the sake of data binding. With this you can truly use MVVM through knockoutjs, angularjs, backbonejs, etc....
If you want to use MVVM check knockoutjs. It's very easy and pleasant to use
Using Model classes directly or wrapping them (as in your 1st example) in your ViewModel class can be a potential security issue if your Model classes have some sensitive properties (i.e. IsAdmin in the User class).
Say your controller actions takes a PersonAddressViewModel input parameter:
public ViewResult someAction(PersonAddressViewModel personAddress)
{
//save it
}
A malicious user can basically set any property in your PersonAddressViewModel composite object even if your UI does not provide such capabilitiy.
This is made possible by the default binding mechanism of the MVC.
To avoid this, either don't wrap sensitive model classes or use the Bind attribute
More on this here: Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework 3rd Edition By Steven Sanderson , Adam Freeman (Chapter 17)
If you're using that view model to render a form, I would vote for the second approach, since you're combining all the view data required for the form.
I want to use MVC 3 and the Entity Framework for my application.
The model will be stored in a different assembly to the MVC app.
The choice I'm making is either to use the EF to generate my entities or to use code first.
With code first, I can decorate members with [Required] etc... But how would I go about adding those attributes if EF has generated entities from the DB?
Having EF generate my entities will save a lot of time, but I want MVC to auto populate the validation depending on how I've decorated my members. Does this make sense? If so, how would I do that?
In that case, MetadataTypeAttribute is used. You can combine it with partial classes to achieve desired results
And by the way, in your place i would do more research when deciding between using Database First and Code First designs. That all is not about saving time when generating entities, there's much more difference between those two approaches. For the time saving purpose, you can use EF Power Tools to generate code first entities from database - simple.
Better than auto generating your entities, I recommend you to use Code First or mapping an existing database to POCO's classes (not generating the entities, just creating them by hand and mapping them to the existing database)
Scottgu wrote about using EF "Code First" with an existing database.
Check this out:
In your model template (file with extension model.tt) you can hack this template for generating decorators, in this example I add the [Required] decorator plus an error message
var simpleProperties = typeMapper.GetSimpleProperties(entity);
if (simpleProperties.Any())
{
foreach (var edmProperty in simpleProperties)
{
if(!edmProperty.Nullable)
{#>
[Required(ErrorMessage="<#=String.Format("The field {0} is required",edmProperty.ToString())#>")]<#
}#>
<#=codeStringGenerator.Property(edmProperty)#><#
}
}
So the result is something like this
[Required(ErrorMessage="The field Id is required")]
public long Id { get; set; }
PS: You can also add the
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations; by editing the template.
Hope this can help you up.
How do I integrate ReportViewer in asp.net MVC project?
I want to add business objects of MVCProject.Model namespace. ReportViewer allows Business objects of DataSet.
Is it possible to choose other data source, like LinqDataSource, or Direct object to LINQ-to-SQL class objects?
What would be the best solution to add reports in an MVC project?
An alternative way to do this would be to generate the report on the reporting server, then stream it to the mvc app as a PDF.
I got an idea that is not tested but may work.
1- Place report viewer control in a standard ASP.Net web form page (e.g. ReportViewer.aspx)
2- Under your MVC, add an iframe that references to this ReportViewer.aspx page
3- Pass parameters to the page using sessions or query strings
Let me know if th is works
It's gonna be tough. First, you need ViewState so you'll need to host the report in a regular WebForms page. This isn't too bad though - WebForms and MVC work fine side-by-side.
The hard part is binding to real IEnumerable objects and not those phoney-baloney ObjectDataSources.
The first step is to build up a report data model. You can do this in code, with queries, whatever, however you want. A structure something like this (but obviously much bigger) is typical:
public class ReportSource
{
public Floogle[] Floogles { get; set; }
}
public class Floogle
{
public Doodad[] Doodads { get; set; }
public string Text { get; set; }
}
public class Doodad
{
public int Number { get; set; }
}
The trick is to use a BindingSource control in your report and set the DataSource property to typeof(ReportSource) - yes, the data source is the type of your report model.
When designing your report you won't get a lot of richness, but you'll be able to do it.
As far as third party reporting solutions go, we've found Telerik's to be the best option.
I've got a small project I threw up on codeplex that is an mvc project with a report.
http://mvctaskmanagement.codeplex.com/
Basically since I do dev on an XP box, my web form had to get pushed to a separate project. Since I have a service layer proj, I stuck it in there.
From there I call my report via a ajax post shooting the params over to the report page, which then passes it down to the same service layer used to generate the preview.
Good luck!