I was playing around with the MSBuild system this weekend and realized I could do something useful with it. So today I got a question from someone in the ##asp.net IRC-channel on Freenode about having a value that changes when in Debug, Release or other profile for running the application. I came up with this little nifty thing in my .csproj file:

<Copy
  SourceFiles="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Web.$(Configuration).config"
  DestinationFiles="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Web.config" />

To put that into your .csproj file you need to unload the project and then edit the .csproj file.

1. Right click on the chosen project and click “Unload project”
2. Right click again on the chosen project and click “Edit .csproj”
3. Find the following tag: <Target Name=”BeforeBuild”> and uncomment that tag.
4. Put the code into the tag and save the file.
5. Right click the chosen project and click “Reload Project”.

Now create one file called Web.Debug.config and one called Web.Release.config. Put the settings and what not you want to have in there, a good start is to copy the default Web.config file into both files. Delete the default. Web.config file and try to run the project. It will complain about enabling debugging in the Web.config file, ignore that and chose run without debugging and press ok.

That’s it, now you got two different Web.configs that are chosen depending on your current configuration.

I would love any input on this.

EDIT: To get rid of the dialog telling you that you don’t have a Web.config, do the following:

1. Click the Project menu and click “Show all files”
2. Find the Web.config and include it.
3. Click the Project menu and click “Show all files” again.

Don’t do any edits to the Web.config as that file will be replaced on each build. By doing this you keep VS happy and you happy.

Nesta vídeo aula de Dowhile.com.br você irá aprender a criar uma animação estática e dinâmica em Silverlight 4, utilizando o Microsoft Blend 4 e Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, porém você poderá aplicar os mesmos conceitos utilizando o Silverlight 3 com o Blend 3 e Visual Studio 2008.

Segue o Link

Animação dinâmica

Abraços e bom divertimento,

Flávia Moreira

Nach der Installation von Windows 7 64bit mit IE8 gibt es offensichtlich keine Möglichkeit, in IE8 das Javascript Debugging abzustellen. Eine entsprechende Checkbox in den Internetoptionen hat keinen Einfluss auf das Verhalten, bei der Verwendung des Development Servers dauert die Ausführung von Webprojekten gefühlte 5-10x länger. Nach einer längeren Google Suche bin ich auf folgende Lösung gestossen:

Den 32bit Commandprompt als Administrator öffnen (c:\windows\syswow64\cmd.exe) und folgenden Registry Hack ausführen:

reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\AD7Metrics\Engine\{F200A7E7-DEA5-11D0-B854-00A0244A1DE2} /v ProgramProvider /d {4FF9DEF4-8922-4D02-9379-3FFA64D1D639} /f

Spätestens beim nächsten VS2008 Start ist das Script Debugging disabled! Um das Debugging wieder zu aktivieren, folgenden Hack ausführen:

reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\AD7Metrics\Engine\{F200A7E7-DEA5-11D0-B854-00A0244A1DE2} /v ProgramProvider /d {170EC3FC-4E80-40AB-A85A-55900C7C70DE} /f

Die Credits für diese Lösung gehören www.dotnetpete.com! Thanks alot!

Ever wondered how to generate XML schema from XML file?
Indeed, a lot of 3ed party tools can do it for you. But as usual, any easy way?

You can use Visual Studio IDE itself to generate XSD from XML file. Follow the steps.

1) Open the XML file in Visual Studio IDE.
2) Take View > Other Windows > Command Window.
3) Now type and execute command – XML.CreateSchema
4) See, the schema is generated.

A hidden pearl in VS IDE. Isn’t it?

Targeted Audience – Beginners.

Olá pessoal.

Como eu estou mudando o meu blog para um site, então atualizei as informações.

Segue alguns artigos e vídeos sobre Silverlight.

Usando Javascript e Silverlight

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/63-usando-funcao-javascript-em-silverlight-.html

Usando e-mail e Webservice

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/60-enviando-e-mail-com-silverlight-parte-ii-.html

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/59-enviando-e-mail-com-silverlight-parte-i-.html

Usando linq to sql

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/58-populando-datagrid-usando-linq-to-sql-em-silverlight-parte-ii.html

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/57-populando-datagrid-usando-linq-to-sql-em-silverlight-parte-i.html

vídeo

Usando Javascript e Silverlight

http://www.dowhile.com.br/videos/silverlight/64-acessando-metodo-csharp-pelo-javascript.html

Abraços

Flávia Moreira

http://www.dowhile.com.br

The load test in Visual Studio are a great help to stress/performance test you applications.  With the web test you “should” be able to record actions as you use your application.  When you add a web test IE starts and there should be recorder bar on the left.

When ever I created a web test I never saw the web test recorder bar show up.  I didn’t even know I was missing it.  So, I was never able to get to do anything besides record that you launched a page which helps you test page load time, but doesn’t help you when your trying to determine the response time when clicking a button on your page.

After a little research (little as in there are few articles explaining this problem), I found a blog post explaining why the web test recorder not working.  It turns out to be a 64-bit issue.  There are some registry keys that need to be deleted, so IE will rebuild what explorer bars are available.

Here is the link to the article.

http://weblogs.asp.net/jdanforth/archive/2009/09/05/visual-studio-2008-web-test-not-recording-on-64-bit-windows-7.aspx

The short version is close all IE’s, run regedit, then delete the following keys

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Discardable\PostSetup\Component Categories\{00021493-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Discardable\PostSetup\Component Categories\{00021494-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

Being new to building Windows Services can be a confusing task considering the amount of information available; most of which appears to assist in the issues that crop up with their development. Those articles that demonstrate how to build Windows Services correctly for the most part appear to address earlier versions of Visual Studio. One wouldn’t think that there would not be much difference but in the writer’s recent experience there appears to be.

Not surprisingly, the best document that is available for a developer new to this type of development comes directly from Microsoft’s MSDN site. The emphasis is placed on the construction of a proper service framework as well as its correct installation in to the Services cache. This latter process appears to cause a lot of problems with developers whereby there is much confusion between what the Visual Studio will do for you in terms of a service’s installation and what may have to be done with the command-line utility, “InstallUtil”, that is provided with the .NET Framework(s).

The MSDN document, which follows, will demonstrate the following for you…

1) Creating a service project
2) Creating an installation\setup project
3) Creating the proper framework for a service that will install into the Services cache properly

With the built-in overriden functions such as “onStart” and “onStop”, much of the task oriented code required by any given service can be easily implemented. This document and another, which describes implementing a timer with a service are also available in PDF format for downloading along with the links for the article sources…

Black Falcon

Note: Only the C# code has been included in the following document.  Samples for VB.NET and J# can be found on MSDN at the article source.

Article Source:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zt39148a%28VS.80%29.aspx

Visual Studio Programmer’s Guide for the .NET Framework

Walkthrough: Creating a Windows Service Application in the Component Designer

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zt39148a%28VS.80%29.aspx

The procedures in this topic walk you through the process of creating a simple Windows Service application that writes messages to an event log. The basic steps that you perform to create and use your service include:

• Create a project using the Windows Service application template. This template creates a class for you that inherits from ServiceBase and writes much of the basic service code, such as the code to start the service.
• Write the code for the OnStart and OnStop procedures, and override any other methods that you want to redefine.
• Add the necessary installers for your service application. By default, a class containing two or more installers is added to your application when you click the Add Installer link: one to install the process, and one for each of the associated services your project contains.
• Build your project.
• Create a setup project to install your service, and then install it.
• Access the Windows 2000 Services Control Manager and start your service.

To begin, you create the project and set values that are necessary for the service to function correctly.

Creating a Service

To create and configure your service

1. On the File menu, click New Project.

The New Project dialog box opens.

1. Select the Windows Service project from the list of Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, or Visual J# project templates, and name it MyNewService. Click OK.

1. Click the designer to select Service1. Then, in the Properties window, set the ServiceName and the (Name) property for Service1 to MyNewService.
2. Set the AutoLog property to true.
3. On the View menu, click Code to open the Code Editor. Edit the Main method to create an instance of MyNewService. When you renamed the service in step 3, the class name was not modified in the Main method. In Visual C# and Visual J# applications, the Main method is located in the Program.cs and Program.js files, respectively.

static void Main()
{
    System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun;
    // Change the following line to match.
    ServicesToRun = new System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase[]
      { new MyNewService() };
    System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);
       }

Adding Features to the Service

To add custom event log functionality to your service

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click Service1.vb, Service1.cs, or Service1.jsl and select View Designer.
2. From the Components tab of the Toolbox, drag an EventLog component to the designer.
3. In Solution Explorer, right-click Service1.vb, Service1.cs, or Service1.jsl and select View Code.
4. Edit the constructor to define a custom event log.

public MyNewService()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    if (!System.Diagnostics.EventLog.SourceExists("MySource"))
    {
            System.Diagnostics.EventLog.CreateEventSource(
                "MySource","MyNewLog");
    }
    eventLog1.Source = "MySource";
    eventLog1.Log = "MyNewLog";
}

To define what happens when the service starts

• In the Code Editor, locate the OnStart method that was automatically overridden when you created the project, and write code to determine what occurs when the service begins running:

protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
    eventLog1.WriteEntry("In OnStart");
}

To define what happens when the service is stopped

• In the Code Editor, select the OnStop procedure from the Method Name drop-down list, which was automatically overridden when you created the project. Write code to determine what occurs when the service is stopped:

protected override void OnStop()
{
    eventLog1.WriteEntry("In onStop.");
}

You can also override the OnPause, OnContinue, and OnShutdown methods to define further processing for your component.

To define other actions for the service

• For the method you want to handle, override the appropriate method and define what you want to occur.

The following code shows what it looks like if you override the OnContinue method:

protected override void OnContinue()
{
    eventLog1.WriteEntry("In OnContinue.");
}

Some custom actions need to occur when installing a Windows service, which can be done by the Installer class. Visual Studio can create these installers specifically for a Windows service and add them to your project.

To create the installers for your service

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click Service1.vb, Service1.cs, or Service1.jsl and select View Designer.
2. Click the background of the designer to select the service itself, rather than any of its contents.
3. With the designer in focus, right-click, and then click Add Installer.

By default, a component class containing two installers is added to your project. The component is named ProjectInstaller, and the installers it contains are the installer for your service and the installer for the service’s associated process.

1. In Design view for ProjectInstaller, click ServiceInstaller1 or serviceInstaller1.
2. In the Properties window, set the ServiceName property to MyNewService.
3. Set the StartType property to Automatic.
4. In the designer, click ServiceProcessInstaller1 (for a Visual Basic project), or serviceProcessInstaller1 (for a Visual C# or Visual J# project). Set the Account property to LocalService. This will cause the service to be installed and to run on a local service account.

To build your service project

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click to select your project and select Properties from the shortcut menu. The project’s Property Designer appears.
2. on the Application page, from the Startup object list, choose MyNewService.
3. Press CTRL+SHIFT+B to build the project.

Now that the project is built, it can be deployed. A setup project will install the compiled project files and run the installers needed to run the Windows service. To create a complete setup project you will need to add the project output, MyNewService.exe, to the setup project and then add a custom action to have MyNewService.exe installed. For more information on setup projects, see Setup Projects. For more information on custom actions, see Walkthrough: Creating a Custom Action.

To create a setup project for your service

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click to select your solution, point to Add, and then click New Project.
2. In the Project Types pane, select the Setup and Deployment Projects folder.
3. In the Templates pane, select Setup Project. Name the project MyServiceSetup. Click OK.

A setup project is added to the solution.

Next you will add the output from the Windows service project, MyNewService.exe, to the setup.

To add MyNewService.exe to the setup project

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click MyServiceSetup, point to Add, then choose Project Output.

The Add Project Output Group dialog box appears.

1. MyNewService is selected in the Project box.
2. From the list box, select Primary Output, and click OK.

A project item for the primary output of MyNewService is added to the setup project.

Now add a custom action to install the MyNewService.exe file.

To add a custom action to the setup project

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the setup project, point to View, and then click Custom Actions.

The Custom Actions editor appears.

1. In the Custom Actions editor, right-click the Custom Actions node and choose Add Custom Action.

The Select Item in Project dialog box appears.

1. Double-click the Application Folder in the list box to open it, select Primary Output from MyNewService (Active), and click OK.

The primary output is added to all four nodes of the custom actions — Install, Commit, Rollback, and Uninstall.

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the MyServiceSetup project and click Build.
2. To install MyNewService.exe, right-click the setup project in Solution Explorer and select Install.
3. Follow the steps in the Setup Wizard. Build and save your solution.
4. Open the Services Control Manager by doing one of the following:

To install the Windows Service

To start and stop your service

• In Windows XP and 2000 Professional, right-click My Computer on the desktop, then click Manage. In the Computer Management console, expand the Services and Applications node.

- or -

• In Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server, click Start, point to Programs, click Administrative Tools, and then click Services.

1. You should now see MyNewService listed in the Services section of the window.
2. Select your service in the list, right-click it, and then click Start.
3. Right-click the service, and then click Stop.
4. Open Server Explorer and access the Event Logs node. For more information, see How to: Work with Event Logs in Server Explorer.

To verify the event log output of your service

1. Locate the listing for MyNewLog and expand it. You should see entries for the actions your service has performed.
2. On the Start menu, open Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs, and then locate your service and click Uninstall.
3. You can also uninstall the program by right-clicking the program icon for the .msi file and selecting Uninstall.

To uninstall your service

Next Steps

You can use an installer to create an event log when the application is installed, rather than creating the event log when the application runs. Additionally, the event log will be deleted by the installer when the application is uninstalled. For more information, see Walkthrough: Installing an Event Log Component.

PDF Downloads…

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8BDAA836-0BBA-4393-94DB-6C3C4A0C98A1&displaylang=en

The Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2008 features and a variety of framework technologies including: LINQ, C# 3.0, Visual Basic 9, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, VSTO, CardSpace, SilverLight, Mobile and Application Lifecycle Management.

When using  the Visual Studio integration for TFS 2008, you will notice that the latest version will not be retrieved when you start making changes to a file.

There is an option that you need to have an option.  To get to this option perform the following steps:

Launch Visual Studio 2008

Click Tools->Options

Expand the Source Control section

Click on Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

Ensure that the Get Latest version of item on check out is checked.

Now when you check out a file if you don’t have the latest version, it will prompt that you don’t and fetch it for you.

Dzisiaj otrzymałem licencję na Refactor Pro. Jest to dodatek do Visual Studio 2008 usprawniający pisanie aplikacji. Pierwsze wrażenia są bardzo pozytywne, po zainstalowaniu dodatku i otwarciu jednego z projektów automatycznie zostały dodane opcje Refactora.

Ciekawą funkcjonalnością Refactora jest zgłaszanie ostrzeżeń pomijanych przez Visual Studio takie jak na przykład brak zadeklarowanego domyślnego konstruktora klasy, który można utworzyć automatycznie przy użyciu podręcznego menu i tak samo łatwo usunąć zbędny konstruktor lub inny kawałek kodu.

Dodatkowo Refactor umieszcza obok elementów strukturalnych kodu ikony określające typ elementu (klasy, metody) po kliknięciu ukazuje się lista możliwych do wykonania akcji (np.: zmiany modyfikatora dostępu).

Niedługo będę przygotowywał spory projekt będę więc mógł napisać coś konkretnego o Refactorze w praktyce wraz ze zrzutami ekranu pokazujacymi niektóre z dostępnych opcji.

Aujourd’hui, je voudrais commencer une série de billet concernant les tests fonctionnels d’un site web pilotés par des données (Data Driven Functional Testing).

L’origine de billet vient d’une migration de base de données utilisée par notre site web. En gros la question était:

Maintenant que la migration de la base est finie (en test), peux-tu contrôler que tout fonctionne correctement?

En soit, c’est un peu une question à 100 balles. En gros, je n’avais que 3 options:

• Tester tous les éléments de la base (tables, liens et autre) histoire de voir si tout répondait. Effectivement, si le CRUD passait sur tous les éléments, pas de raison que le reste ne fonctionne plus.
• Me taper tout le code source du site histoire de savoir quelles sont les requêtes utilisées et par conséquent les objets en base. C’est bien beau, mais quelque millier de pages dans un language que ne maitrise pas, ça repousse un peu.
• Prendre un échantillon représentatif des reqêtes sur le site de prod pour voir si ça se passe toujours bien en test. C’est pas parfait, mais ça devrait tout de même être représentatif.

Dès demain, je décrirai le processus que j’ai suivi. Sachez simplement qu’il n’implique que des outils gratuits (sauf Visual Studio): Logparser, NUnit, Selenium, Firefox et Visual Studio 2008.

Si vous avez déjà une idée de la marche à suivre, vous êtes les bienvenus pour m’envoyer un petit commentaire.

Dzisiaj na naszej uczelni odbył się IT academic day. Jest to cykl konferencji poświęconych technologiom Microsoftu odbywający się na różnych uczelniach w cały kraju. Agenda ITAD na Uniwersytecie Śląskim:

1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.
2. Imagine Cup.
3. XNA Game Studio i gry RPG
4. Czego jeszcze nie wiecie o Windows 7.

Pierwsza prelekcja dotyczyła nowości w Visual Studio 2010. Przyznam szczerze, że wprowadzenie w postaci historii produktów VS mnie nieco znudziło i nie uczestniczyłem w dalszej części prelekcji.

Prelekcja dotycząca Imagine Cup była poprowadzona w formie poradnika “Jak wygrać Imagine Cup”.

Druga połowa ITAD była zdecydowanie ciekawsza (przynajmniej z mojego punktu widzenia). W ramach prezentacji XNA Game Studio poprowadzonej przez Rafała Czupryńskiego został stworzony kod prezentujący prostotę tworzenia gier RPG za pomocą tego narzędzia. Samo XNA Game Studio jest rozszerzeniem Visual Studio i umożliwia pisanie gier m.in. w języku C#. Więcej informacji na temat projektu XNA tutaj.

Ostatnia prezentacja dotyczyła ciekawych i przydatnych nowości w Windows 7 takich jak federated search, wyszukiwanie wielowątkowe, applocker czy windows API umożliwiające tworzenie aplikacji wykorzystujących możliwości nowych elementów interfejsu windows 7.

1. Shortcuts Part 1
2. Shortcuts Part 2
3. Shortcuts Part 3
4. Shortcuts Part 4
5. Shortcuts Part 5
6. Shortcuts Part 6

A caller has attempted to import a transaction from a remote system, but MSDTC is currently configured to disallow inbound transaction manager communication on machine. Please review the MS DTC configuration settings.

To enable network DTC access and configure Windows Firewall on Windows Vista:

1. Click Start, click Run, type dcomcnfg and then click OK to open Component Services.
2. In the console tree, click to expand Component Services, click to expand Computers, click to expand My Computer, click to expand Distributed Transaction Coordinator and then click Local DTC.
3. Right click Local DTC and click Properties to display the Local DTC Properties dialog box.
4. Click the Security tab.

Set the following options on the Security tab of the Local DTC Properties dialog box and click OK.

1. Open the Control Panel, open Windows Firewall, and click Change settings to display Windows Firewall Settings.
2. Click the Exceptions tab.

Check the box for Distributed Transaction Coordinator and click OK.

Make sure you select Mutual Authentication on your Biztalk server DTC settings also.

Usando função JavaScript em Silverlight 3

Olá amigos mais um artigo!

Estou trabalhando duro atualizando os artigos para Silverlight 3 e claro experimentando noVisual Studio 2010 Beta 2.  Já funciona, não é lindo ?.

Então o endereço do link é:

Usando função JavaScript em Silverlight

abraços,

Flavia Moreira

The XAML editor in Visual Studio 2008 has gotten a bad rap, and for good reason; it’s garbage. After upgrading to Windows 7, the XAML editor would occasionally hang VS 2008 for several minutes, sometimes indefinitely. I tried several of the recommended fixes on the Internet, but nothing seemed to help. Just by chance I ran VS2008 as an Administrator and everything started working again.

I am not certain this is specific to Windows 7, but I started noticing the problem when I upgraded.

I hope this helps you. This bug was driving me insane!

Olá coloquei mais dois artigos, como enviar e-mail usando o silverlight !!

veja os dois artigos em:

dowhile

Abraços,

Flávia Moreira

Olá amigos

Adicionei mais artigos no dowhile usando o Silverlight 3 com visual Studio 2010 Beta 2.

1     Populando Datagrid usando LINQ TO SQL em Silverlight Parte II
2     Populando Datagrid usando LINQ TO SQL em Silverlight Parte I
3     Vídeo Player em Silverlight Visual Studio 2010 – Parte II
4     Primeira Aplicação em Silverlight
5     Vídeo Player em Silverlight – Visual Studio 2010 Parte I
6     Introdução ao Microsoft Blend 3

Para acesso a todos estes conteúdos acessem:

dowhile

abraços,

Flávia Moreira

Neste tutorial será mostrado como criar um simples vídeo em Silverlight usando o Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 ou Visual Studio 2008. As ferramentas de desenvolvimento podem ser baixadas no site da Microsoft.

Para ter acesso ao conteúdo acesse:

http://www.dowhile.com.br

abraços,

Flávia Moreira

Olá

Dowhile está no ar de cara nova

Você não viu ? Então veja.

Não perca tempo, tem Artigos e Vídeos.

Coloquei artigos sobre Silverlight. Veja o video Silverlight interagindo com PHP!!!!! Não é demais ?!?!?!?

http://www.dowhile.com.br

abraços,

Flávia Moreira

Hola muchachos, cuando tuve un problema con la PC en la empresa donde hago unos trabajitos tuve finalmente que intentar desinstalar el Visual Studio 2008, y si alguna vez lo has intentado comprenderás que no es nada fácil, resultar una tarea algo aterradora por decirlo así, ya que  nunca quedarás libre del todo al sacar los componentes siempre quedará alguno que no saques y esta además ese miedo si!! de ese mismo te hablo, el que suena en tu cabeza y te pregunta cada que quieres darle desinstalar  a algo y preguntas… ¿Será del Visual o de otra cosa? mmmm, ¿Será compartido? ayyyy xD… ante esto buscando en Internet encontré una pequeña herramienta un programita que da la misma página de soporte de Microsoft y te permite desinstalar el Visual Studio 2008 completamente y de una manera limpia y ordenada (si porque para desinstalarlo de una manera correcta tiene que ser en un determinado orden), esto me solucionó el problema finalmente y también me ahorró algo de tiempo ahora se las quiero compartir, puedes descargarla de mi skydrive, espero que les sirva

Herramienta desinstalar Visual Studio 2008

Herramienta desinstalar Visual Studio 2005 (Beta)

Excellent, now I can detect Visual Studio design time anywhere in my code. (Make sure to read the comments, they provide a valuable correction.)

I came across interesting issue with one of our controls. I needed a different behavior during design-time and run-time. I was sure that .NET Framework has a nice solution for me, but I found out this is not the case.There is a DesignMode property but according to several sources it doesn’t always work as expected. There seems to be more that one way to solve the issue. I decided to useSystem.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess.ProcessNameand check if it equals string “devenv”. If it does, the instance is running inside Visual Studio, which means it’s design-time for our control. For my problem this simple solution worked as a charm.

via Detecting Design-time in C#.

User controls are reusable controls that can be defined once and used whenever we need them, in any of the .aspx pages of our application. We do have skins,themes and css to give a standard look to our website. User controls help to achieve that as well because since we define them once and use many times, thus making sure we do not have same controls on pages looking differently. When we make changes to a user control all these changes will be reflected to all instances of the control.

I will try to highlight the following in this post

1. What is a user control and why we need it
2. How to add Content to a User Control
3. How to add a User Control to a Web Page
4. How to define properties in a User Control
5. How to handle events in a User Control
6. How to raise events in a User Control
7. How to access the contents of a User Control

We will have to create a simple user control step by step.Imagine you have many pages in your asp.net website. Let’s say that you are developing a fully functional e-commerce site. You will find that you need to collect user data, e.g address information (shipping address info,billing address info,registration customer address info). In this example we will use a user control to collect customer address data.

We just need Visual Studio 2005/2008 or VS 2010.

1) Launch Visual Studio and create a new asp.net website

2)  Save this website in you local file system and give it a name. Choose C# as your development language for this website

3)  Add new folder to your website and name it UserControl

4) Right-click on this folder and add a new item. From all the items available select a Web User control. Also choose C# as the devlopment language and tick the option Place code in a seperate file.Name the control Address.ascx

5) Switch to the Source view of the Address.ascx control.Have a look at the first line.

<%@ Control Language=”C#” AutoEventWireup=”true” CodeFile=”Address.ascx.cs” Inherits=”UserControls_Items_Address” %>

Notice that even though this directive looks a lot like a page directive it starts with  @ Control

6)  Open the Address.ascx.cs file.Your newly create class does not inherit from theSystem.Web.UI.Page but from

public partial class UserControl_Address : System.Web.UI.UserControl

The classes System.Web.UI.Page and System.Web.UI.UserControl have lots in common since they both inherit from another class,TemplateControl class

For more information click here

7)  Let’s work on our new user control. Insert a table in your “Address.ascx” page. This table should have 4 rows and 2 columns.

8)  Add 4 label web server controls on the first 4 rows of the first column. Set their IDproperty as you like(AddressLabel1,AddressLabel2,AddressLabel3,PostCodeLabel). Set their text property like  this

• Address1
• Address2
• Address3
• PostCode

9) Add 4 textbox web server controls on the 4 rows of the second column.Set their IDproperty like this

txtaddr1,txtaddr2,txtaddr3,txtpostcode

10)  In order to add this newly created web user control to the Default.aspx page just drag and drop it from the Solution Explorer onto the .aspx page

11) Look in the source view of the Default.aspx page and notice this line

<%@ Register src=”UserControl/Address.ascx” tagname=”Address” tagprefix=”uc1″ %>

This is how the user control is registered with the .aspx page. You will also see this

<uc1:Address ID=”Address1″ runat=”server” />

Change the ID property to Shipping_Address

12) We can add new server controls to our user control. If we wanted to have a label control as a header we must select the Address.ascx and just above the table to insert a new label.Name this label headingLabel.

One can set the Text property of this new header label control and make it apparent to the end use that we talk about Shipping Address. But as I mentioned before we need to use this user control in many places in our website. So we do not want to have a fixed Textproperty but one we can set its value accordingly.

Select the Default.aspx page and in the

<uc1:Address ID=”Shipping_Address“  runat=”server”/> section you will see thatheadingLabel is not exposed as a property. It cannot be accessed from our page.

So we must add a new public property on this UserControl_Address class.This is the same with every other normal class.

So in the Address.ascx.cs file type

public string Header
{
set { headingLabel.Text = value; }
}

13) Now you can go back to the Default.aspx page (Source View) and add theHeader=Shipping Address <uc1:Address ID=”Shipping_Address“  runat=”server” Header=”Shipping Address”>

14) It is very easy to handle events in a user control.Add a button to the user control. This means that you go to the Address.ascx file and drop a button under the table. Set the IDproperty to be txtNext and the Text property to be Next. Add another .aspx page to your website and call it Checkout.aspx. Double click on the button and you have the empty event handling routine.

Type the following

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Response.Redirect(“~/Checkout.aspx”);
}

You see how easy it is to handle events in a user control.

14 ) Let’s see now, how we can create an event in the user control. First we need to define an event.

When we define an event we must define the signature of the event handler method. We do that by choosing a delegate type.We also must give a name to our event. We will call itConfirmed event.

Select the Address.ascx.cs and type

public event EndEventHandler Confirmed

So we know now that our user control class will raise an event and we must write some code to actually cause this event to be raised.

So in our Button_Click event handler, we type

if (Confirmed!=null) Confirmed(this, new EventArgs());

When the user clicks the button, the Confirmed event will be raised.

Select the Default.aspx page and in the Source View locate the

<uc1:Address ID=”Shipping_Address“  runat=”server” Header=”Shipping Address”/>

and change it to

<uc1:Address ID=”Shipping_Address” onConfirmed=”ShippingAdress_Confirmed”  runat=”server” Header=”Shipping Address”/>

We just added the event handler in the user control.We do that by entering the name of the event and the name of the event handling routine we will add shortly.

In order to add the ShippingAdress_Confirmed event handling routine we go back to theDefault.aspx.cs file and type

protected void ShippingAdress_Confirmed(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

}

Inside this routine add this line of code:

Response.Write(“The event has been handled”);

Run the application and you will see the event raised and handled (the text “The event has been handled” will be printed in the Default.aspx page)

For more information on events have a look here .

15) Let’s assume that we need 2 instances of our user contol in the Default.aspx page (e.g one for shipping address and one for billing address).Select the Default.aspx and add a new user control. Go to the Source View and add a Header property e.g Billing Address. Also set the ID property to “Billing_Address“. You should have something like this

<uc1:Address ID=”Billing_Address” runat=”server” Header=”Billing Address” />.

Run the application and see the 2 user controls.

We need to copy all the fields entered in our Shipping address to the Billing address fields.

So we must access the text properties of the Shipping_Address user control and copy them to the Billing_Address user control.

You will see that it is impossible to access these textbox values directly  fromShippingAdress_Confirmed event handler in the Default.aspx.cs class, because these text properties are protected and thus invisible to the event handling routine.

So we need to create some public properties in our user control class.

Select the Address.asx.cs file and type

public string Address1
{
get {return txtaddr1.Text; }
set {txtaddr1.Text=value;}
}
public string Address2
{
get { return txtaddr2.Text; }
set { txtaddr2.Text = value; }
}
public string Address3
{
get { return txtaddr3.Text; }
set { txtaddr3.Text = value; }
}
public string PostCode
{
get { return txtpostcode.Text; }
set { txtpostcode.Text = value; }
}

16) Select the Default.aspx.cs file and inside the ShippingAddress_Confirmed event handling routine, comment out the ( Response.Write(“The event has been handled”);) and type
Billing_Address.Address1 = Shipping_Address.Address1;
Billing_Address.Address2 = Shipping_Address.Address2;
Billing_Address.Address3 = Shipping_Address.Address3;
Billing_Address.PostCode = Shipping_Address.PostCode;

Run your application. Type some address data into the first user control and then click the button.You will see the entered data copied in the second user control.

Hope it helps. If you need the source code just email me.