Finally a new version of SubSonic was released today with a lot of new features.  SubSonic is one of my favorite Data Access Layer (DAL) generators, that makes it super easy to create data access code.

As a developer you have a lot of control over what the generated code looks like, which is great because I do not like code generators to dictate the essence of my code.  But the beauty of SubSonic is that you never really have to interact with the generated code itself.  It’s automatically generated and compiled for you — you just need to learn how to use it, which is pretty simple.  What’s more, it’s free, and works with not only SQL Server, but also with MySQL, SQLite, and Oracle databases. 

SubSonic was originally started by Rob Conery as an open source project.  Later, Microsoft hired Rob and asked him to continue working on this project.  The latest 3.0 version took about a year to be completed.  According to Rob’s blog following are some of the new features:

A nice Linq engine which parses IQueryable “stuff” into SQL (thanks to Matt Warren’s excellent work with the IQToolkit, which we stole mercilessly).

A templating system which allows you to use ActiveRecord, good old Linq in Linq to SQL style, or whatever floats your boat.

A SimpleRepository which is just about zero-drag and even builds your database for you

A brand-new project site that will hopefully answer the question “is SubSonic dead”? Or probably not

A new docs site that has permanently crushed my ability to type. It’s a wiki so if you feel like being helpful and like SubSonic and want to help… nudge… nudge

ScottGu  just made available a free downloadable eBook in PDF format as well as a simple and easy-to-understand sample project called Nerddinner.

The eBook is actually a chapter from his upcoming book on MVC, but it is an end-to-end tutorial that walks through building a small but complete ASP.NET MVC application from scratch.

Download eBook.

Download Nerddinner sample code.

Buy ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Book at Amazon.com. 

If you do decide to read this book, please do not forget to share your thoughts with me.

SubSonic is an excellent open source DAL generation tool developed by Rob Conery that has been around for almost a year. In most cases SubSonic can just be added to your project, pointed to a databse, and you magically and immediately gain access to a rich and strongly typed object model that can be used to query and persist data to and from your relational data source.

SubSonic also has a cool feature called the REST handler that essentially allows one to use HTTP protocol as an interface to data stored in a back-end relational database. It is URI based and returns data back in XML format. This data can then be used by decoupled client applications as they see fit. If you have never looked at SubSonic, you owe it to yourself to checkout this very cool tool.

Recently Microsoft unveiled their plans to release similar features codenamed Astoria and Jasper with .NET framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008. The CTP of Astoria and Jasper are available for download from Microsoft.

Jasper is described by Microsoft as:

Project Jasper is geared towards iterative and agile development. You can
start interacting with the data in your database without having to create
mapping files or define classes. You can build user interfaces by naming
controls according to your model without worrying about binding code. Project
Jasper is also extensible, allowing you to provide your own business logic and
class model. Since Project Jasper is built on top of the ADO.NET Entity
Framework, it supports rich queries and complex mapping.

Pablo Castro, the mastermind behind Astoria describes it as:

The goal of Microsoft Codename Astoria is to enable applications to expose data as a data service that can be consumed by web clients within a corporate network and across the internet. The data service is reachable over HTTP, and URIs are used to identify the various pieces of information available through the service. Interactions with the data service happens in terms of HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE, and the data exchanged in those interactions is represented in simple formats such as XML and JSON.

The Astoria web site also includes sample online services that showcases how this new technology can be used. It also allows anyone with a Passport account to design and host their own experimental data services .

ASP.NET generates temporary files from the code-behind and aspx files that it compiles into assemblies behind the scenes. These temporary files are stored in %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files folder. Sometimes these files get out-of-sync with the user code and modifications to the code have no effect while debugging. In such situations it is safe to delete the contents of this folder and force ASP.NET to regenerate these files.

Some of the features of Anthem.NET include:

• Free and open source
• Support for .NET 1.x and 2.0
• Seamless integration with Visual Studio 2005
• Broad browser support (IE, Firefox, and Safari)
• Support for Mono
• Familiar ASP.NET postback style functionality
• Support for ASP.NET ViewState
• Support for web user controls

You can download Anthem.NET from SourceForge.

In .NET 2.0, apsnet_regiis can encrypt and decrypt sections of web.config and machine.config using RSA, DPAPI, or any other custom encryption provider. However, how do we encrypt/decrypt a custom application configuration (e.g. app.config of a WinForms application)?

We are in luck, since the System.Configuration namespace provides everything we need to accomplish this task. The following class, for example, can be used to encrypt/decrypt any .NET configuration file:

///
/// Implements a utility class that enables encrypting / decrypting
/// sections in .NET configuration files.
///
internal static class ConfigEncryptionHelper
{
    #region Encryption Methods

    ///
    /// Encrypts a section in a .NET configuration file using a named provider.
    ///
    /// Physical path of configuration file.
    /// Section name to encrypt.
    /// Name of the encryption provider.
    public static void EncryptConfigSection(string configPath, string sectionName, string protectionProviderName)
    {
        // Map the configuration file
        ExeConfigurationFileMap fileMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();
        fileMap.ExeConfigFilename = configPath;

        // Open configuration file
        Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(fileMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None);

        // Get the desired section
        ConfigurationSection section = config.GetSection(sectionName);

        // Encrypt the section
        if (!section.SectionInformation.IsProtected)
            section.SectionInformation.ProtectSection(protectionProviderName);

        // Save configuration file
        config.Save();
    }

    ///
    /// Encrypts a section in a .NET configuration file using DataProtectionProvider.
    ///
    /// Physical path of configuration file.
    /// Section name to encrypt.
    public static void EncryptConfigSection(string configPath, string sectionName)
    {
        EncryptConfigSection(configPath, sectionName, "DataProtectionConfigurationProvider");
    }

    #endregion

    #region Decryption Methods

    ///
    /// Decrypts a section in a .NET configuration file.
    ///
    /// Physical path of configuration file.
    /// Section name to encrypt.
    public static void DecryptConfigSection(string configPath, string sectionName)
    {
        // Map the configuration file
        ExeConfigurationFileMap fileMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();
        fileMap.ExeConfigFilename = configPath;

        // Open configuration file
        Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(fileMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None);

        // Get the desired section
        ConfigurationSection section = config.GetSection(sectionName);

        // Decrypt section
        if (section.SectionInformation.IsProtected)
            section.SectionInformation.UnprotectSection();

        // Save configuration file
        config.Save();

    }

    #endregion
}

While automatic paging is a very handy feature of GridView, if you want to display any additional paging controls than those inherently supported by automatic paging, you must resort to specifying your own PagerTemplate and write some additional code to preform the same functionality that GridView would otherwise handle for you.

In certain situations, a better option, however, is to simply inject your custom control(s) into the pager generated by the GridView. The following example shows how we can inject a “View All” LinkButton into GridView’s pager row that allows users to view all rows in the underlying data source at the same time:

protected void MyGridView_RowCreated(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.Pager)
    {
        LiteralControl space = new LiteralControl(" ");

        LinkButton lb = new LinkButton();
        lb.ID = "ViewAllLinkButton";
        lb.Text = "View All";
        lb.SkinID = "ProfessionalGridViewPagerViewAll";
        lb.Click += new EventHandler(ViewAllLinkButton_Click);

        // Pager is rendered in a single cell as a table;
        // each page # is in a cell by it's own
        Table table = e.Row.Cells[0].Controls[0] as Table;

        // Add ViewAll linkbutton to the last cell
        TableCell parentCell = table.Rows[0].Cells[table.Rows[0].Cells.Count - 1];
        parentCell.Controls.Add(space);
        parentCell.Controls.Add(lb);
    }
}

protected void ViewAllLinkButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    MyGridView.AllowPaging = false;
}

<asp :Image ID="ApprovalImage" runat="server" ImageUrl="" />

I recently posted about how the lack of project files in Visual Studio 2005 Web Site Projects make it difficult to deploy web applications.

I just came across this add-in for Visual Studio 2005 that actually addresses this very issue. It’s called the Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects (WAP) and is available as a free download from Microsoft. WAP provides following features to ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site Projects in Visual Studio 2005:

1. A project file that contains references to all web content as well as any assembly references.
2. Compilation into single assembly that is built into the bin folder.
3. Pre and Post Build actions.

While WAP is aimed at developers converting web applications from Visual Studio 2003, I think that it’s an invaluable tool for anyone creating web applications using Visual Studio 2005.

protected ReadOnlyCollection GetCacheItemList()
{
    List cacheItemList = new List(Cache.Count);

    IDictionaryEnumerator cacheEnum = Cache.GetEnumerator();
    while (cacheEnum.MoveNext())
    {
        DictionaryEntry cacheItem = (DictionaryEntry)cacheEnum.Current;
        cacheItemList.Add(cacheItem.Key.ToString());
    }

    return new ReadOnlyCollection(cacheItemList);
}