ASP.NET 2.0 Petshop 1.0 Beta version

In one of my previous posts I had mentioned that I was working on migrating the Petshop application to the new release of ASP.NET 2.0. Although I have not done fully with it, I have completed the part related to placing the order which forms the major chunk of application. Parts which remain to be implemented are the search functionality, login / logout funtionality and managing users. Since these features are now implemented separately in 2.0 release, I have delayed their implementation till I finish doing bit of R&D on that aspect of it.

Unfortunately, I am not able to upload the zip file containing the source code and Db scripts to this blog. If anybody is interested in having a look at the modifications I have made they can mail me at [email protected]. I'll be happy to share the code with you. And I hope to get feedback from you guys.

Continue Reading...

Accesing UserControl properties from MasterPage in content pages

I was working on migrating the Petshop example when I came across a problem. I had put the header control in the master page and needed to access the properties of user control in one of the content pages.

The master page itself derives from UserControl class. While googleing, I came across following article which demonstartes how to access Usercontrol properties in content pages.
Kiran Chand's blog

There was nother problem related to ImageButton. Somehow the server side click event of the image button was not getting fired. After trying all the stunts, I wrote to the ASP.NET team members and also to the authors who write articles on various sites. The answer I got from one of the ASP.NET team member was that the new version does not support multiple forms in the same page. And to achive the kind of functionality (search across pages) can be achieved using the newly added cross-page postback feature. For the time being that has solved the issue for me and I am back to giving finishing touches to the Petshop application.

Continue Reading...

ASP.NET 2,0 Data Binding sample chapters

Microsoft has released the new version of ASP.NET along with visual studio IDE and SQL Server 2005. I came across few sample chapters on data binding and advcanced Web Services on theserverside.net. You can download the PDF from the following link:
sample chapters
I am also working on migrating the Petshop example to the latest version. Very soon I shall post that code in this blog :)

Continue Reading...

ASP.NET 2.0

There is lot of speculation about ASP.NET 2.0, the next release from Microsoft. I do not have any hands on experience of working with this technology so far. But while browsing I found some interesting things which I would like to share.

It seems there are going to be major changes in the next release of ASP.NET code named Whidbey. There are many new controls being added like GridView and DetailsView controls. Caching is improved with Database depedency. There is enhanced support for Globalization and many many new features.

For all the folks who are interesting in learning about this technology, I would like to recommend reading of articles and going through the presentation at the ASP.NET site which has a dedicated section for Whidbey.

Also Nikhil Kothari's blog gives lot of insights into the developments related to Whidbey.

Continue Reading...

Sample Applications in ASP.NET

Whenever we come across some difficulty while coding one of the easiest ways to arrive at a solution is to search in Google. This is helpful when we need to finish the task on hand. But its always advantageous to have some sample codes and try to analyze how things are done by the experts. Especially if a complete application is available which demonstrates various features rather than explaining just one or two concepts, its of great help.

I have come across several such applications written in C# or VB.NET. I would like to recomment these samples.

1. MS Petshop
This sample tops the list in my preferences. Its written in C# and uses the best practices blue print for SUN's Java Pet Store. The application is supposed to be implemented in 1/4 Code and performs 10 times faster compared to SUN's J2EE version. you can download the source code and also read more about Pet shop at gotdotnet site..

2. Duwamish 7.0 and Fitch and Mather 7.0
These two are multi-tier, distributed enterprise application built specifically for the Microsoft .NET Platform. They are available with the installation CDs and can also be downloaded from Microsoft site. Lot of things have been already documented about these examples. You can check out at MSDN Library

3. FotoVision
This one again comes from Microsoft. It demonstrated various technologies including Windows froms, ASP.NET, Web Services etc. Its divided into 3 separate applications, Desktop, Web and Pocket PC application. Main objective of this application is to share photos on the web. For further information check out MSDN

The sample is written in VB.NET. The same sample application has been ported to C# by Moreno Borsalino and is available for download at http://www.mybackgrounds.tk/. You can also read the blog by Moreno Borsalino here

There is another C# version available atdotnetjunkies web site by Christopher Steen.

Apart from this http://www.asp.net/ site provides 5 end to end samples. Also under the downloads section on the same site there are some more samples which are developed both by Microsoft and non-Microsoft people.

As pointed out by Kert, there is one more sample application Infragistics Tracker. Its a Winforms applications.

Whenever I come across some other sample application I'll post it to this blog. If anybody has come across some other sample application I would like to know about the same.

Continue Reading...

BI day at Microsoft

On Saturday, there was a meet at Microsoft organised by SQLBang. The topic chosen was Business Intelligence (BI). I was in Goa when I read about the schedule of the meeting. I made it just in time (sounds very technical :)) for the meeting having reached around 11:30 AM from Goa to Bangalore.
This was my second trip to Microsoft office after attending the Design Day organised by Bdotnet group. I also informed many people about the meeting but in the end only succeeded in getting Raghu to attend it. After the session was over there were some goodies for grabs and Raghu was lucky enough to grab one Tshirt.
Most of the things that were discussed during the meeting were bouncers for me and Vishal. I was struggling at times trying to keep my eyes open after having travelled for close to 16 hours. The talk given by Dr. Nitin was very good. The demonstrations he made with the help of Microsoft excel were amazing. There was lot of humor during his talk which made the session even more interesting. During the break I cought up with one of my ex colleague.
Next speaker was Nat Natrajan from Microsoft itself and he talked about what we can expect in the next release of Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The question answer session after his talk had to be cut short due to shortage of time. But both the speakers were excellent and like the last meeting this one was also helpful in getting to know many things which will help in future.
There are many more things to write but its time up to go home. Hope next time around I'll write few things in detail about C# and ASP.NET.

Continue Reading...