The more and more I use the GridView control, the more I end up writing my own rather then using the DataBound columns because of the additional flexiblity you get when writing your own templates.

This time I ended up writing my own TemplateField because I need to add a confirm pop up to basically a “delete” command (it didn’t really delete the database record but in fact flagged it as a different type)… but you get the idea where this might come in handy. After all you don’t want users calling saying “Yeah, I just deleted something I didn’t mean to”. Instead you want to pop up a javascript box with a “Do you really want to do this…because I am not fixing it again!”

Unfortunetly the doesn’t offer you an onClientClick event, so this is my work around.

Here is the basic Javascript code to pop up a confirm button.

Now in your GridView->Column Tag add a and your onClientClick attribute. This will call your Javascript function above and display a confirm popup to your users. You also must define a onClick event that points to a function that you will need to create for the server side processing of this request.

If the user clicks “OK” on the popup, you will need to handle the server side processing. I tend to write my own Data Access layer to handle Selects and Deletes so for me it is pretty straight forward from here, I call a function and pass in the unique id from the database.

The End Result

Of course this won’t stop everyone from accidentally deleting users but it will stop 9/10.

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ASP.NET 2.0 Web.Config are much different then 1.0/1.1. I’ll be keeping a running log of the changes I have found, watch outs, and a general lessons learned.

slidingExpiration – I’ve never heard of the thing in 1.1, but it was there the whole time. It is a boolean that tells an authetication cookie to refresh the timeout time on every new request. This makes sense, in fact I’m not entirely sure why you would want it different. In ASP.NET 1.1 this was defaulted as TRUE, however in 2.0 it is default as FALSE. Now I know why everyone was being logged out of the application at 5:00 pm everyday. 😉

<authentication mode=“Forms“>

<forms loginUrl=“Login.aspx“ name=“.ADAuthCookie“ timeout=“480“ slidingExpiration=“true“/>

</authentication>

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I am loving Microsoft’s Vista new font Consolas as my new IDE font for Visual Studio 2005. I used to switch between Courier New 9 pt and Anonymous but Consolas rocks!
Screen Shots:

Also exciting about new Vista fonts is Calibri, which should give web developers another choice besides Verdana for a rounded corner font.

I happend to still have the zip file of Vista Fonts. I know that Microsoft is not giddy about people getting these fonts but I have to ask why? Do they not get that this only drums up interest in Vista (I believe the term is Viral Marketing) Anyways, get your download until they tell me to stop.

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Are there any handheld computers that run Microsoft Vista? Fonts used in Vista may not print properly on Zebra printers, so check compatibility first. You may have issues using external devices like printers and barcode readers on Vista until all the kinks get worked out.

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One thing I was looking forward with asp.net 2.0 release was improved viewstate optimization. The truth is it has improved, but for me there is still something desirable to be had.

Where I have run into the problems is a web application I am working on the must allow the user to add an infinate amount of web controls dynamically. The results below are pretty amazing. I ended up using SharpZipLib for the compressing algorithm.

Test Scenerio: One web page with that ended up with 116 asp.net web controls add to it.

Result of ViewState Size:
Before Compression: 43.3 KB
After Compression using SharpZipLib: 3.50 KB

Below is the code to get you started

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One asp.net custom control that I am loving right now is Denis Baur’s Dynamic PlaceHolder. I’m having to do an web application that must allow for an infinite number of standard web controls and maintain state as these are entered. I went down the AJAX.NET Professional route for a minute but ran into some issues. Instead of recreating the controls on Page_INIT on every request to add a control, I’m able to add to the the new controls to the placeholder list.
Example:

Function AddProduct(Byval strPN as String)

Dim Count As Int32 = CType(ViewState(strPN & "Count_v"), Int32)
Count += 1 'increase viewstate count

Dim ddlProduct as New DropDownList
with ddlproduct
.id = "ddl" & strPN "Product" & Count.ToString()
dphP.Controls.Add(ddlproduct) 'add to dynamic placeholder
end with

ViewState(pn & "Count_v") = Count 'add back to viewstate count

End Function


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We have been doing a lot of asp.net 2.0 development lately.  Here is how we are setting up the web.config file to hold our connection settings.  First, set your web.config file Connection String settings as follows:

<connectionStrings>
<add name="YourConnectionString" connectionString="Data Source=YourSQLServer;Initial Catalog=YourDatabase;User ID=YourUserID;Password=YourPassword" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

In your data access layer classes set the sqlconnection object to the web.config connection string thru the constructor. For VB.NET that is the class’s New() function.  In C# it is the function named the same as the class.  Below are both examples or download the C# version or VB.NET version directly.

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports System.Data
Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.Web.UI

Public Class DataAccess

Dim conn As New SqlConnection
Dim sql As String
Dim objSql As SqlCommand
Dim MyDataReader As SqlDataReader

Public Sub New()
If ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("YourConnectionString") Is Nothing OrElse _
ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("YourConnectionString").ConnectionString.Trim() = "" Then
Throw New Exception("Connection Error")
Else
conn.ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("YourConnectionString").ConnectionString
End If

End Sub

Public Function GetMSRP(ByVal productid As Int32) As String

Dim strUnitPrice As String = Nothing
sql = "SELECT UnitPrice FROM Products WHERE productid = @productid"
‘Set SQL OBJECT
objSql = New SqlCommand(sql, conn)
‘Add Parameters
objSql.Parameters.AddWithValue("@productid", productid)

Try
‘Open Connection
conn.Open()
‘Execute DataReader
MyDataReader = objSql.ExecuteReader
‘Store Values in String Variables
While (MyDataReader.Read())
strUnitPrice = MyDataReader.Item("UnitPrice")
End While
‘Close Connection
conn.Close()
Catch ex As Exception
‘TODO HANDLE EX
End Try
Return strUnitPrice
End Function

End Class

################### c# version

using Microsoft.VisualBasic;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Web.UI;
public class DataAccess {
   
    private SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection();
   
    private string sql;
   
    private SqlCommand objSql;
   
    private SqlDataReader MyDataReader;
   
    public DataAccess() {
        if (((ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("YourConnectionString") == null)
                    || _)) {
            ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("YourConnectionString").ConnectionString.Trim() = "";
            throw new Exception("Connection Error");
        }
        else {
            conn.ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("YourConnectionString").ConnectionString;
        }
    }
   
    public string GetMSRP(Int32 productid) {
        string strUnitPrice = null;
        sql = "SELECT UnitPrice FROM Products WHERE productid = @productid";
        objSql = new SqlCommand(sql, conn);
        // Add Parameters
        objSql.Parameters.AddWithValue("@productid", productid);
        try {
            // Open Connection
            conn.Open();
            // Execute DataReader
            MyDataReader = objSql.ExecuteReader;
            // Store Values in String Variables
            while (MyDataReader.Read()) {
                strUnitPrice = MyDataReader.Item["UnitPrice"];
            }
            // Close Connection
            conn.Close();
        }
        catch (Exception ex) {
            // TODO HANDLE EX
        }
        return strUnitPrice;
    }
}

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