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Free Continuous Integration Toolkit

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:15:52 GMT

continuous integration (CI) implements continuous processes of applying quality control - small pieces of effort, applied frequently. Continuous integration aims to improve the quality of software, and to reduce the time taken to deliver it, by replacing the traditional practice of applying quality control after completing all development. My personal definition is: "Giving a damn that the code you write is not breaking the app considering that other developers are working on the code base at the same time and realizing that you are not infallible."

DotTrace 4.0 Performance Profiler Released

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:45:52 GMT

I have been using DotTrace for a while now and have always found it invaluable when digging into an application to find performance bottlenecks and memory leaks. Before DotTrace it was a real pain trying to lock down these problems (often so obscure that the Hubble space telescope could find it difficult to see!). What DotTrace does is to take a snapshot of an application, while it is running, from a performance/memory usage perspective and then provide you with several ways of digging into your code and highlighting potential hotspots or problematic areas.

How to use Google Data API in ASP.NET MVC. Part 2 - YouTube

Tue, 25 May 2010 18:45:52 GMT

In this second part of my GData series I tried to explain how to use YouTube API for .NET to store/retrieve videos on/from YouTube.

Ordering fields in ASP.NET MVC 2 templated helpers

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:15:00 GMT

Ever worked with the templated helpers provided by ASP.NET MVC 2? Templated helpers provide a way to automatically build UI based on a data model that is marked with attributes defined in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. For example, a property in the model can be decorated with the attribute [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:c}")], and the templated helpers will always render this field formatted as currency. If you have worked with templated helpers, you must agree: they can be useful! There's one thing which is impossible in the current version: ordering fields. And that's what this post will accomplish.

Supporting multiple submit buttons on an ASP.NET MVC view

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:15:00 GMT

A while ago, I was asked for advice on how to support multiple submit buttons in an ASP.NET MVC application, preferably without using any JavaScript. The idea was that a form could contain more than one submit button issuing a form post to a different controller action. The above situation can be solved in many ways, one a bit cleaner than the other. For example, one could post the form back to one action method and determine which method should be called from that action method. Good solution, however: not standardized within a project and just not that maintainable. A better solution in this case was to create an ActionNameSelectorAttribute.

Leveraging ASP.NET MVC 2 futures ViewState

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:30:10 GMT

In my previous blog post, I called something "ViewState in MVC" while it is not really ViewState. To be honest, I did this on purpose, wanting to see people discuss this possibly new feature in MVC 2. Discussion started quite fast: most people do not like the word ViewState, especially when it is linked to ASP.NET MVC. As Phil Haack pointed out in a comment on my previous blog post, I used this foul word where it was not appropriate: "(.) I think calling it ViewState is very misleading. (.) what your serializing is the state of the Model, not the View. (.)" Let's use this in a practical example.

Creating Excel spreadsheets .XLS and .XLSX in C# - ASP.NET MVC Project

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:20:00 GMT

Recently I had to implement some code to create an Excel spreadsheet/report using C#. The task was: given an Excel spreadsheet template - a .XLS file (with formulas, pivot tables, macros, etc) I had to fill some data in one of the sheets of the spreadsheet and send this modified spreadsheet back to the user requesting such an operation (Excel report). I had a great time while studying the possible ways of doing what the task asks for. In this article I present an ASP.NET MVC project that shows you how to create an .XLS file using NPOI and an .XLSX file using ExcelPackage.

Creating Excel spreadsheets .XLS and .XLSX in C# - ASP.NET MVC Project

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:20:00 GMT

More ASP.NET MVC Best Practices

Wed, 06 May 2009 19:16:02 GMT

In this post, I'll share some of the best practices and guidelines which I have come across while developing ASP.NET MVC web applications. I will not cover all best practices that are available, instead add some specific things that have not been mentioned in any blog post out there. Existing best practices can be found on Kazi Manzur Rashid's blog and Simone Chiaretta's blog.

ELMAH: Error Logging Modules and Handlers for ASP.NET (and MVC too!)

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:01:11 GMT

ELMAH has been one of the most useful tools for ASP.NET developers to log errors on their web applications. Now Scott has a nice talk on how to use it even in your ASP.NET MVC applications. Cool!

MSDN session on ASP.NET MVC

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:44:15 GMT

As promised to all people attending my online session on ASP.NET MVC this afternoon, here is the slide deck I've used. I must say, doing a presentation using Live Meeting and a Microsoft Roundtable device seemed a bit strange at first. However, the setup that is used to do this kind of sessions is really cool to work with! Make sure to check Katrien's blog for all other Live Meeting MSDN sessions that are planned.

ASP.NET MVC and the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:46:14 GMT

Microsoft's Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a .NET library (released on CodePlex) that enables greater re-use of application components. You can do this by dynamically composing your application based on a set of classes and methods that can be combined at runtime. Think of it like building an appliation that can host plugins, which in turn can also be composed of different plugins. Since examples say a thousand times more than text, let's go ahead with a sample leveraging MEF in an ASP.NET MVC web application.

Using the ASP.NET MVC Futures AsyncController

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:31:04 GMT

Last week, I blogged about all stuff that is included in the ASP.NET MVC Futures assembly, which is an assembly available on CodePlex and contains possible future features (tonguetwister!) for the ASP.NET MVC framework. One of the comments asked for more information on the AsyncController that is introduced in the MVC Futures. So here goes!

Sample chapter from ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Quickly

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:12:04 GMT

When downloading and installing the ASP.NET MVC framework SDK, a new project template is installed in Visual Studio. This chapter describes how to use the ASP.NET MVC project template that is installed in Visual Studio. All ASP.NET MVC aspects are touched briefly by creating a new ASP.NET MVC web application based on this Visual Studio template. Besides view, controller, and model, new concepts including ViewData-a means of transferring data between controller and view, routing-the link between a web browser URL and a specific action method inside a controller, and unit testing of a controller are also illustrated here.

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 has been released!

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:31:02 GMT

To keep up with a good tradition (see here and here), I'm being one of the earliest bloggers having great news on ASP.NET MVC: we are at version 1.0! This means production ready, supported, stable, .! Grab the download at Microsoft.com.

Using StringTemplate as a ViewEngine for ASP.Net MVC

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:09:22 GMT

Describes how to use StringTemplate as an alternative View Engine for the Asp.Net MVC framework. Links to the source code (on Google Code) for the ViewEngine implementation, and gives a basic walkthrough of how to implement StringTemplates as views.

Forms interaction with ASP.NET MVC (screencast)

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:25:22 GMT

This screencast is a short demonstration on how you can handle form interactions using the ASP.NET MVC framework.

Forms interaction with ASP.NET MVC (screencast)

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:25:22 GMT

This screencast is a short demonstration on how you can handle form interactions using the ASP.NET MVC framework.

jQuery Form Serialization without ASP.NET ViewState

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:31:10 GMT

When building AJAX applications that send client form content to the server, ViewState and EventValidation fields can get in the way. Using jQuery you can make short work skipping over these fields and send only the raw POST data to the server.

Code based ASP.NET MVC GridView

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:31:05 GMT

Maarten Balliauw shows you how to build an ASP.NET MVC html helper extension method which generates a nice gridview-like control using pure code and MVC framework.

System.Web.MVC, Rhino Commons, Castle Active Record, Nhibernate, Part

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:29:45 GMT

Rhino.Commons, AR & NHibernate was the right decision for my project, but I've made a conscious effort to shield the MVC web site application from having any knowledge of their existence. This was done to achieve greater separation of layers and fewer direct dependecies.

ASP.NET MVC custom ActionResult (ImageResult)

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:33:03 GMT

The ASP.NET MVC framework introduces the concept of returning an ActionResult in Controllers since the "preview preview" release on CodePlex. The purpose of this concept is to return a generic ActionResult object for each Controller method, allowing different child classes returning different results. In this blog post, I will build a custom ActionResult class which will render an image to the HTTP response stream.

ASP.Net MVC Membership Starter Kit

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:19:04 GMT

Troy Goode posted abou this yesterday. Today, there's already an update available containing some cool new stuff!

ASP.NET MVC Framework out on CodePlex

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:46:02 GMT

This morning, I was browsing the new projects page on CodePlex and noticed something nice! The ASP.NET MVC team already rumoured around making the ASP.NET MVC framework source code available on CodePlex, but here it is: the ASP.NET MVC project on CodePlex.

ASP.NET MVC - Testing issues Q and A

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:51:33 GMT

Some commonly asked questions when developing ASP.NET MVC and unit tests.