.Net Tweaks

Invalid postback or callback argument. Event validation is enabled using in configuration....

2011-05-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

I had a datagridview in which I added an EDIT button so that I click on edit button to edit that records. Whenever I clicked that button I would get this error.

Invalid postback or callback argument. Event validation is enabled using in configuration

After googling alot I got some crazy answers like go to web.config and set enableEventValidation to true but this didn't solved problem. At the end it was simple. Just put your databinding code (in my case LoadData() function) inside IsPostBack like this.

if (!IsPostBack)
{
LoadData();
}

Happy coding...:)

Facebook "Like" and "Share" count same -- A work around

2011-04-07T00:57:00.000-07:00

I have been writing a post here after so long. The thing made me write this is about facebook.
We had added facebook LIKE and share buttons to our site. The client posted a bug saying the count of LIKE and share buttons is always the same. After doing some googling I found facebook guys saying the count is of interaction of the link with facebook. For example we put it on www.abc.com/xyz.aspx and someone LIKE it, it will increment the interaction. Then if someone share it on facebook this will also increment the interaction.
I found the work around by chance. :)
Here it is.
FB Share button like the one below

<div class="dvshare" style="float: right; width: 120px;">

   <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php" name="fb_share" type="button_count">Share</a><script
   src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share" type="text/javascript">
   </div>

It picks up the current URL from browser, share it and increments the count.
In my case the URL was like this http://www.mydomain.com/myfolder

The browser automatically adds "/" at the end making it "http://www.mydomain.com/myfolder/".

The LIKE button however first look for the canonical tag and send canonical tag to facebook.

Fortunately we had added the canonical tag like this.

<link rel="canonical"  href="http://www.mydomain.com/myfolder" /> i.e. without the "/" at the end.

This made it having different counts for share and LIKE button.

In my personal opinion it is a bug on facebook but.....

Happy coding...:)

ASP.Net: Maximum length of textarea (Multiline textbox)

2010-07-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

In ASP.Net if we use textbox with TextMode="MultiLine" then its MaxLength property does not work. There is a simple workaround for it using javascript.

First dd the javascript function. This will restrict the textbox to maximum of 10 characters. As the user start typing the 11th character it will remove the 11th character immediately.

<script type="text/javascript">

function CheckMaxLength(txtBoxVal) {

if (txtBoxVal.value.length > 10) {

txtBoxVal.value = txtBoxVal.value.substring(0, 10);

}

</script>

Then add the function to onkeyup event of textbox. (Intellisence will not show onkeyup event in visual studio you have to type it yourself)

<asp:TextBox ID="txtName" TextMode="MultiLine" Height="50px" runat="server" Rows="3" onkeyup="CheckMaxLength(this);" ></asp:TextBox>

Enjoy coding.... ! :)

ASP.Net: Clientside Date, Double, Integer,Currency Validation

2010-07-27T23:42:00.000-07:00

When using text field date, Double type (decimal places or different decimal characters in globalization etc) and currency validation on client-side we often use regular expression validator and try to write complex regular expressions. The easiest way to validate these data types is to use compare validator. I think it’s the most powerful and awesome control for validating data types.
All you have to do is to set

Operator="DataTypeCheck"

And

Type="<<your required type here >>>"

It supports following types:

Date
Currency
Double
Integer
String

Look at the following examples:

This validates the date according to current culture of the application.

<asp:TextBox ID="txtDateStart" CssClass="input" runat="server" Width="200"></asp:TextBox>

<asp:CompareValidator ID="cmprValidatorDateStart" ControlToValidate="txtDateStart" Type="Date" Display="Dynamic" Operator="DataTypeCheck" ErrorMessage="*Not a valid date." runat="server"<>/asp:CompareValidator>
This validates double type. The plus point of using this is that for example you set the current culture to German (which uses "," as a decimal character) it also validates that correctly with no change.

<asp:TextBox ID="txtDoubleType" CssClass="input" runat="server" Width="200"></asp:TextBox>

<asp:CompareValidator ID="cmprValidatorDoubleType " ControlToValidate=" txtDoubleType" Type="Double" Display="Dynamic" Operator="DataTypeCheck" ErrorMessage="*Not a valid number." runat="server"<>/asp:CompareValidator>
This validates Currency

<asp:TextBox ID="txtCurrencyType" CssClass="input" runat="server" Width="200"></asp:TextBox>

<asp:CompareValidator ID="cmprValidatorDoubleType " ControlToValidate=" txtCurrencyType" Type="Currency" Display="Dynamic" Operator="DataTypeCheck" ErrorMessage="*Not a valid amount." runat="server"<>/asp:CompareValidator>

Enjoy coding....! :)

Binding Checkbox in GridView (A work around)

2010-04-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

I needed to bind a checkbox in gridview to a database field but to my disappointment I found that this was not easy. We could bind "Text" property but what if I don't want to display the value I am binding (e.g. ID of that record). Here is a work around.

I added a hidden field next to checkbox like below.

<span id="spanTextBox">
<asp:CheckBox ID="chkItem" runat="server" Checked="false" />
<asp:HiddenField ID="hfdID" Value='' runat="server" />
</span>

It's easy to access this from server side but if you want the value (intOrderId in my case) in javascript on checkbox click it requires a little trick.

I added a javascript function to each checkbox in databound event of grid.

protected void dgvOrders_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
{
CheckBox chk = e.Row.FindControl("chkItem") as CheckBox;
chk.Attributes.Add("onclick", "CheckChanged('" + chk.ClientID + "');");
}
}

Javascript function added above goes here.

function CheckChanged(id) {
// The line below returns the value of that hidden field we just added.
// So in my case I get the intOrderId value here.
// Note that both these controls should be in a separate container
// like it have added it in the span.
var text = document.getElementById(id).nextSibling.nextSibling.value;
}

Hope this helps you. :)
Enjoy coding....!

Comma separated string in SQL Server (without cursor)

2010-03-29T03:11:00.000-07:00

A simple example of getting a comma seperated string of values from a column in SQL server. As cursors are not recommended (they slow down the process) I am doing it without iterating through rows.

Create PROCEDURE up_GetValueString

AS
BEGIN

DECLARE @statusList varchar(5000)

SELECT @statusList = COALESCE(@statusList + ',', '') +
CAST(unitid AS varchar(50))
from
(
select unitid from product
) a

select @statusList AS IDS

END
GO

How to write "in" and "Not in" query in Linq?

2010-03-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

I was writing some simple queries in LINQ and got stuck with in-clase. I need to pick all the user roles from role table which are not assigned to any user i.e. not present in UserRole table. After a little googling I found that in LINQ there is no properly defined construct for it but people use different methods to acheive the functionality. The easiest one that worked for me is as follows.

I had to acheive this:

select * from roles where intRoleId not in (select ID from UserRoles)

In LINQ:

var Roles = (from c in dc.Roles
where c.intClientId == clientId
&& (!dc.UserRoles.Any(ur => ur.intRoleId == c.ID))
select c).OrderBy(o => o.vchName);
returnRoles = Roles.ToList();

dc.UserRoles.Any() is the subquery and "!" sign is for "not in". If you want to write simple in-clause just remove this.

Cheers,

Validating all text fields.

2009-12-29T23:31:00.000-08:00

I needed to validate all the text fields on the page and restrict the user from entering scripts into text fields and text areas. Following is the solution (Using a simple regular expression).

This function should be called on submit of the form.
function ValidateAllFieldsForScripting() {
//Checking all text boxes
var f = document.getElementsByTagName('input');
var isInputValid = true;
for (var i = 0; i < f.length; i++) {
if (f[i].getAttribute('type') == 'text') {
if (checkScriptInput(f[i]) == false) {
isInputValid = false;
}
}
}
// Checking all text areas.
f = document.getElementsByTagName('textarea');
for (var i = 0; i < f.length; i++) {
if (checkScriptInput(f[i]) == false) {
isInputValid = false;
}
}
if (isInputValid)
return true;
else {
ShowInvalidInputDiv();
return false;
}
}
// This function checks the text field for script input.
function checkScriptInput(obj) {
var legalChars = /[\<\>]/;
if (legalChars.test(obj.value)) {
obj.style.background = '#FFF1F5';
return false;
} else {
return true;
}
}

/// Function for displaying error message.
function ShowInvalidInputDiv() {
// Here you should write the code for displaying some error message to the user.

}

Different user interface for different blogs in Community server.

2009-03-25T02:29:00.000-07:00

In this post I will be guiding you how to have different user interface for different blog groups in in community server.

1. Just create new blogs in different blog groups from control panel.

2. Create new master pages for the blogs containing seperate CSS and structure.

3. Now create a copy of Blogs folder in Themes\[themename] folder.

For example I had a folder at the following directory structure.
Themes\hawaii\Blogs
This folder contains pages to show blogs and blog posts. I copied it and pasted in the same folder (using visual studio 2008, I think this copy-paste would not be possible in VS 2005). Then I renamed it as "MyBlogs".

4. Now set you custom master page to all the pages in the new blog folder (like I have MyBlogs).

5. The trick part is still not done yet. :)
Now open your SiteURL.config file and find location name="weblogs" section. Create a copy of all this section with all its URLs. I have almost 40 to 50 URLs in this section. Don't forget to rename all these URLs otherwise your site can give unexpected links. I renamed all these urls only by appending "2" with their names like the one below.

By modifying you location tag you can easily configure a URL rewriting for this folder. After this modification you are now ready to access your blogs.

To filter you postlist to show posts only from a specific blog you can filter them in Themes\[themename]\[youblogfolder]\postlist.aspx. Just open that page and give a group ID to weblogpostlist control.

For any other help required you can frankly ask here or on my email address naqvi.mujtaba@gmail.com

How to filter posts in community server blogs using multiple tags?

2009-03-25T01:43:00.000-07:00

In this post I will be showing you to filter posts in community server blogs page using multiple tags.

The process is a lot more than simple. Following are the steps.

1. Open you main blog page (Themes\[themename e.g hawii]\blogs\postlist.aspx) in any text Editor.

2. Find weblogpostlist control. There you will find queryoverrides section. Just modify the this section and place you required tags in TAGS property (comma seperated) and then set LogicallyOrTags property to true.
For example I want to show only those posts on page which are tagged with "MyTag1" and "MyTag2", I would place the following query in that section.

Now the page will show only those posts which are tagged with atleast one of these tags.
Note: If you are changing tags of posts in Tags Editor then it takes sometime to update so you must reload page more than once.

You can ask frankly if there is any dificulty. :)

How to create Sharepoint Web Application Programmatically?

2008-11-19T00:05:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we want to create Sharepoint web application programmatically (I needed it while I was writing an installer).

The following code will help you in this regard.

public static void Create()

{

SPWebApplication newApplication = null;

int port = 2020;

string userName = "xdev\\mujtaba";

string userPass = "p@ssw0rd2";

SPWebApplicationBuilder appBuilder = new SPWebApplicationBuilder(SPFarm.Local);

int myPort = Convert.ToInt16(port.ToString());

appBuilder.Port = myPort;

appBuilder.ApplicationPoolId = "My Application - " + port.ToString(); //Used to show in the sharepoint application list.

appBuilder.ApplicationPoolUsername = userName;

System.Security.SecureString password = new System.Security.SecureString();

char[] pass = userPass.ToCharArray();

foreach (char c in pass)

password.AppendChar(c);

appBuilder.ApplicationPoolPassword = password;

appBuilder.CreateNewDatabase = true; // Create new database

appBuilder.DatabaseName = "wss_site" + port.ToString() + "_content"; // database name

//webAppBuilder.DatabaseServer = webAppBuilder.DefaultZoneUri.Host; //Host name/computer name

appBuilder.UseNTLMExclusively = true; // Use NTLM authentication

appBuilder.ServerComment = "My Application - " + port.ToString();

newApplication = appBuilder.Create(); // Create new web application

newApplication.Name = "My Application - " + port.ToString();

newApplication.Provision(); //Provision it into web farm

Console.WriteLine("Application Successfully created.");

}

You will have to add reference to Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll to you project.

Enjoy it.

SQL Server Network Instance Detector

2008-11-18T20:51:00.000-08:00

What is it?

Control used in a sample application

You have to give a username and password to retrieve all hosted databases. Note: SQL_Detect_dll.zip is the assembly containing the SQLServersDetector control. SQL_Detect_source.zip contains the source code of the control, along with a sample application using the control.

Introduction

It's a simple window control that can load all of the SQL Server instances in your local network and then load all of the databases on the selected server. I used SqlDataSourceEnumerator to load servers from the network.

Background

I was writing code in C# that was related to the manipulation of data with more than one database. I found that it was difficult for a user to type the address of a server and database into the text input fields and then connect to them for further manipulation because there is always the chance of the sever name or path being misspelled. If a user by mistake inputs the wrong spelling of the server or database name and then clicks connect, it takes a long time to decide that the path is not valid and throw an exception. Then the user has to to check the spelling again and give the input again, which I think is always irritating. So, I decided to detect the server instances automatically and load databases from the server and so on...

Using the Control

The control is easy to use, as is any other Windows control in .NET. You just have to add a reference of the DLL that is provided with this article. Alternatively, add the project to your solution and add a reference of the project SqlServersDetector to your project. Then the control will appear in your Toolbox just like this.

Now you can simply drag and drop it onto your form.

Properties of the Control

You can use the following properties of the control if you need them.

//Property to get the connection string that is created

//by using selected server, selected database, username and password.

lblConnectionString.Text = sqlServersDetector1.DBConnectionString;

//Property to get or set the text that is displayed on

//upper left corner of the control

sqlServersDetector1.MainLabel = "All Servers";

//Property to get or set the text that of the label

//against Servers combo box.

sqlServersDetector1.ServersLabel = "Servers";

//Property to get or set the text that of the label

//against Databases combo box.

sqlServersDetector1.DatabasesLabel = "Database";

//Property to get the selected server instance.

string server = sqlServersDetector1.SelectedServer;

//Property to get the selected database.

string database = sqlServersDetector1.SelectedDatabase;

Using the Example Solution Provided with the Article

If any beginner doesn't know how to use the solution, just download the ZIP file SQL_Detect_source.zip and unzip it. Then open the SQLServerDetectionControl.sln solution file and run the project named TestAppForSQLServerControl. If you are still facing problems using this control, then feel free to ask.

Download control DLL - 4.7 KB

Download source - 31.8 KB

This article is also available on codeproject on the following link.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/NetworkInstanceDetector.aspx

About this Blog

2008-11-18T04:12:00.000-08:00

You can find some useful information on this blog about Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2007. You can frankly ask about confusion that you have about sharepoint server. You can also share your experiences so that others may benefit from you experience.