KaushaL.NET

Cross Browser (CSS) Compatibility (setting Browser Specific Property values of controls)

2008-12-31T17:19:00Z

You would obviously have come across the “Browser Compatibility” issues many times while designing a webpage. For example, assigning a CSS class to any control may render well with IE but it may not get rendered that perfect way in Mozilla; and if you fix for Mozilla then IE rendering may get affected. But, we not only need to manage in between IE and Mozilla, but we also need to think about other browsers as well like Opera, Safari and Netscape etc, etc.

Here is one trick how you can you apply “Browser Specific” CSS to a control. That is, while assigning CssClass or Class to any control you can just prefix the browser name followed by colon to specify the Browser Specific CSS Class.

For Example, look at the below snippet,

<title>Untitled Page</title>

.IELabelCss

{

color:Red;

}

.MozillaLabelCss

{

color:Green;

}

.SafariLabelCss

{

color:Black;

}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<div>

<asp:Label runat="server" ID="Label1"

Text="This is a test"

IE:CssClass="IELabelCss"

Mozilla:CssClass="MozillaLabelCss"

Safari:CssClass="SafariLabelCss">

</asp:Label>

</div>

</form>

</body>

</html>

In above example, I have specified different Browser Specific CssClass to have different text colors to render in IE, Mozilla and Safari for a label control. In the same way, you can define Browser specific CssClass by prefixing the Browser name followed by colon before the CssClass/Class Property. This would be more helpful while we are having trouble in setting margin/padding specially while using DIVs against different browsers.

You can also specify different Browser specific property values also. For Example,

<asp:Label runat="server" ID="Label2"

IE:Text="IE will render this Text"

Mozilla:Text="Mozilla will render this Text"

</asp:Label>

In above example, different text properties are defined for IE and Mozilla.

Hope, the trick would help to others who are looking for “Cross Browser Compatibility”.

Happy New year 2009!!

2008-12-31T11:26:00Z

Wishing all the DotNetSlackers bloggers/members, a very happy and delighting bug free new year! Hope all will continue on addind and sharing knowledge through community. Hoping for great success ahead for all.!

Microsoft DreamSpark - Sparking a billion Dreams

2008-11-06T04:08:00Z

Microsoft launches DreamSpark: Indian students get access to technical software at no charge

Bill Gates talks to students about the use of technology in improving lives

- Access to software developer and designer tools to students at no charge

- DreamSpark includes:

o Visual Studio 2005/2008 Professional Edition,

o Expression Studio (includes Web, Blend, Media and Design),

o SQL Server 2005 Express, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition,

o Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition,

o XNA Game Studio 2.0 and

o 12-month trial academic subscription to the XNA Creators Club

- Available online on www.dreamsparkindia.com; and via DVDs at NIIT, Aptech and Hughes Net Fusion Centers

Happy Navaratri to you all!!

2008-10-04T05:50:00Z

wishing you all people happy Navaratri! God Bless us all...

Visualize your .NET code with nAML!

2008-09-12T06:30:00Z

Understanding the architecture and code in software application plays as major factor while building good software products.

Along with specification, examples and tools, a new visual modeling technique being introduced, termed as “nAML” (.NET Application Modeling Language), which overcomes the limitation of typical modeling languages in a revolutionary way! Nothing much to say, just download (FREE) it and you can get to know how POWERFUL it is!

Here is the project site: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/naml

The project is currently in Beta 1 phase. Your valuable input/feedback in this thread will greatly help to make it much better.
Here is a free e-book introduces this visual modeling technique: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=naml&DownloadId=3083

How to send an email with attachment in asp.net 2.0

2008-09-11T06:37:00Z

I have seen many posts over forums asking for how to send emails in asp.net.

In this blog post, I am going to post code snippet to send email in asp.net (with / without attachment).

MoreOver, for Complete FAQ for the System.Net.Mail namespace found in .NET 2.0 (Click here for System.Web.Mail). This is an excellent resource to understand total mail functionalities in asp.net.

Check out Below Code to send email in asp.net:

C#

using System.Net;
using System.Net.Mail;
-----------------------

        public static bool SendMail(string strFrom, string strTo, string strSubject, string strMsg)
        {            
            try
            {                
                // Create the mail message
                MailMessage objMailMsg = new MailMessage(strFrom, strTo);
                
                objMailMsg.BodyEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;
                objMailMsg.Subject = strSubject;
                objMailMsg.Body = strMsg;
                objMailMsg.Priority = MailPriority.High;
                objMailMsg.IsBodyHtml = true;

                //prepare to send mail via SMTP transport
                SmtpClient objSMTPClient = new SmtpClient();
                objSMTPClient.DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.PickupDirectoryFromIis;
                objSMTPClient.Send(objMailMsg);
                return true;                
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw ex;
            }
        }     

  VB:

Public Shared Function SendMail(ByVal strFrom As String, ByVal strTo As String, ByVal strSubject As String, ByVal strMsg As String) As Boolean
			Try
				' Create the mail message
				Dim objMailMsg As MailMessage = New MailMessage(strFrom, strTo)

				objMailMsg.BodyEncoding = Encoding.UTF8
				objMailMsg.Subject = strSubject
				objMailMsg.Body = strMsg
				objMailMsg.Priority = MailPriority.High
				objMailMsg.IsBodyHtml = True

				'prepare to send mail via SMTP transport
				Dim objSMTPClient As SmtpClient = New SmtpClient()
				objSMTPClient.DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.PickupDirectoryFromIis
				objSMTPClient.Send(objMailMsg)
				Return True
			Catch ex As Exception
				Throw ex
			End Try
End Function



Code to send mail with attechment.,

        public static bool SendMail(string strFrom, string strTo, string strSubject, string strMsg)
        {            
            try
            {                
                // Create the mail message
                MailMessage objMailMsg = new MailMessage(strFrom, strTo);
                
                objMailMsg.BodyEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;
                objMailMsg.Subject = strSubject;
                objMailMsg.Body = strMsg;
                Attachment at = new Attachment(Server.MapPath("~/Uploaded/txt.doc"));
                objMailMsg.Attachments.Add(at);
                objMailMsg.Priority = MailPriority.High;
                objMailMsg.IsBodyHtml = true;

                //prepare to send mail via SMTP transport
                SmtpClient objSMTPClient = new SmtpClient();
                objSMTPClient.DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.PickupDirectoryFromIis;
                objSMTPClient.Send(objMailMsg);
                return true;                
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw ex;
            }
        }

Referecned Thread link: How to send an email with attachment in asp.net 2.0 - ASP.NET Forums

hope this helps.

South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 at Goa, India

2008-09-11T04:20:00Z

There will be South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 at Goa, India near around mid of November! Goa is a marvalous city with its lively culture, sumptuous food, and of course the beaches! I am eagerly waiting for!!

I am expected to have Business and social networking with other fellow MVPs, interesting conversations and interactive technical sessions with Microsoft product groups and fellow MVPs.

Here is a Comic representation of South Asia Open Day 2008 :)

Generate Thumbnail images in ASP.NET

2008-09-08T08:18:00Z

I needed to generate Medium (250 X 250) and small (150 X 150) size images from Large (500 X 500) size images as Product images to display in a shopping cart application.

To generate thumbnail images (for scenario I wrote above, or to display iconic Product images within GridView along with Product Details):

        System.Drawing.Image imThumbnailImage;
        System.Drawing.Image _InputImage = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(Server.MapPath("large.jpg"));

        imThumbnailImage = _InputImage.GetThumbnailImage(100, 100,
                     new System.Drawing.Image.GetThumbnailImageAbort(ThumbnailCallback), IntPtr.Zero);
        imThumbnailImage.Save(Server.MapPath("thumb.jpg"));

        imThumbnailImage.Dispose();
        _InputImage.Dispose();

    public bool ThumbnailCallback() { return false; }

Image.GetThumbnailImage Method (System.Drawing) is used to generate thumbnails.
Parameters to pass in this method are:

thumbWidth (Int32):
    The width, in pixels, of the requested thumbnail image.
thumbHeight (Int32):
    The height, in pixels, of the requested thumbnail image.
callback (System.Drawing.Image.GetThumbnailImageAbort):
    A Image.GetThumbnailImageAbort delegate. In GDI+ version 1.0, the delegate is not used. Even so, you must create a delegate and pass a reference to that delegate in this parameter.
callbackData (System.IntPtr):
    Must be Zero.

Streaming Audio Files in ASP.NET

2008-09-06T05:34:00Z

I was having a requirement to Stream Audio files in one of my on-going ASP.NET application; While I googled, I found that to Stream Audio files in a webpage, we need to use <object> tag.
The <object> element can support many different media types, like:

Pictures
Sounds
Videos
Other Objects

We just need to add the Windows Media Player reference using <object> tag with class ID. Windows Media Player comes in many different versions. The class IDs are different for different versions, with a list of parameters you can set (most of them are boolean and self explanatory).

For Windows Media Player 6.4; which I am using, classID should be clsid:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95. The class ID for Windows Media Player 7 and later is: clsid:6BF52A52-394A-11D3-B153-00C04F79FAA6. Many places on the internet it states that the class ID should be: clsid:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95. This class ID is the old one, but it will work, because of backward compability. However, if you use the old class ID you will not be able to use the new features added to the component.

Below is Sample Code for adding <object> tag in your HTML design code which is having reference to Windows Media Player 6.4 with classID as clsid: 22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95.

        <div>
            <object classid="clsid:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95" id="MediaPlayer1">
                <param name="AudioStream" value="true">
                <param name="AutoSize" value="true">
                <param name="AutoStart" value="false">
                <param name="ClickToPlay" value="true">
                <param name="Enabled" value="true">
                <param name="Filename" value="BilloRani_Goal.mp3"> <%--The URL of the file name you want to play--%>
                <param name="AnimationAtStart" value="true">
                <param name="ShowDisplay" value="true">
                <param name="ShowAudioControls" value="true">
                <param name="ShowDisplay" value="true">
                <param name="ShowStatusBar" value="true">
                <param name="ShowGotoBar" value="true">
            </object>
        </div>

Here are the list of parameters you can use with Windows Media Player 6.4 reference, they are almost self explanatory: Windows Media Player Reference in ASP.NET

Accessing SMTP Mail Settings defined in Web.Config File Programmatically

2008-09-06T03:48:00Z

I needed to read my SMTP email settings defined under system.net section in my web.config file. In order to use eNewsLetter and other SiteAdmin CMS modules that sending email notifications; you can setup your web.config to defind SMTP services settings.

Below is one example of SMTP email setting defined in web.config file:
(Under <configuration> Section)

    <system.net>
        <mailSettings>
            <smtp deliveryMethod="Network" from="testuser@domail.com">
                <network defaultCredentials="true" host="localhost" port="25" userName="kaushal" password="testPassword"/>
            </smtp>
        </mailSettings>
    </system.net>

To Access, this SMTP Mail Setting Programatically, you need to import below namespaces:

using System.Configuration;
using System.Web.Configuration;
using System.Net.Configuration;

The .NET Framework provides APIs for accessing settings in a configuration file. Below is how you access the SMTP mail settings of a web.config file in code:

        Configuration config = WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration(HttpContext.Current.Request.ApplicationPath);
        MailSettingsSectionGroup settings = (MailSettingsSectionGroup)config.GetSectionGroup("system.net/mailSettings");
        Response.Write("host: " + settings.Smtp.Network.Host + "<br />");
        Response.Write("port: " + settings.Smtp.Network.Port + "<br />");
        Response.Write("Username: " + settings.Smtp.Network.UserName + "<br />");
        Response.Write("Password: " + settings.Smtp.Network.Password + "<br />");
        Response.Write("from: " + settings.Smtp.From + "<br />");

Thats it!

Auto Postback or Refresh page for every defined time interval

2008-09-05T11:18:00Z

The Scenario may come where application needs data to be updated automatically. The Question comes; Is there a way by which we can auto refresh a page for specific time interval so as to update the Content(automatically).

The ultimate goal is; we want to refresh our page automatically at a defined time interval. First, if you are using AJAX in your website then you can use ASP.NET AJAX > The Timer Control to achieve this. But if you are not using AJAX; then also its not a big deal.

Check out below code which will Referesh the webpage after every 10 seconds:

    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (!Page.IsPostBack)
        {
            //page will be refereshed at a interval of 10 sec
            Response.AddHeader("Refresh", "10");
        }
    }

Alternatively, you can also add meta tag under <title> tag, in your HTML Design code as:
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10;url=http://www.google.co.in">

This will Refresh / Auto Postback the current page after 10 seconds. Optionally you can also define a url which means page will be redirected to that url after specified interval (This functionality comes handy while you want your website user to have Login > See the WelCome / Logged in Successfully Page > and redirect to his Account or Home Page Automatically). if you dont spacify the url, then current page will be refereshed after specified time interval.

How To Access One UserControl from Another UserControl Using ASP.NET

2008-09-03T04:15:00Z

Recently, I came across a post in the asp.net forums (This one > http://forums.asp.net/t/1313476.aspx) , where a user was trying to get the value of a dropdownlist's selected value kept in one UserControl, and set this value as text of one label which is from another UserControl. I have given the answer and giving here some of the description about the same post.

The Scenario is like; there is one UserControl - 1 in which there is one DropDownList. There is another UserControl - 2 in which there is one Label. In DropDownList's SelectedIndexChanged event; we need to set the selected value in Label which resied in UserControl - 2.

Everybody knows the purpose of FindControl (Control.FindControl Method (String) (System.Web.UI)) method; it searches the current naming container for a server control with the specified id parameter.

In addition, there is one property called NamingContainer (Control.NamingContainer Property (System.Web.UI)) which Gets a reference to the server control's naming container, that means it will give the parent container reference of current server control's.

Tha above image is showing the exact scenario which is discussed above. We need to set the Text property of Label with the selected value of DropDownList.
The idea to accomplish this; is, to get the parent control reference (using NamingContainer, for Ex., DropDownList1.NamingContainer will give the reference of its container UserControl - 1) of DropDownList; that is UserControl - 1, again get the parent control reference of the UserControl - 1; that is _Page. As now we got the reference of the Current Page, we can now easily find the second user control's Label with findcontrol method. Hope it makes sense :-)

Below is the Code:

WebUserControl1.ASPX:
A Simple UserControl with DropDownlList with some Static ListItems having AutoPostBack = True:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="WebUserControl1.ascx.cs"
    Inherits="WebUserControl" %>
<asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server" AutoPostBack="True" OnSelectedIndexChanged="DropDownList1_SelectedIndexChanged">
    <asp:ListItem>Select</asp:ListItem>
    <asp:ListItem>test1</asp:ListItem>
    <asp:ListItem>test2</asp:ListItem>
    <asp:ListItem>test3</asp:ListItem>
    <asp:ListItem>test5</asp:ListItem>
</asp:DropDownList>

WebUserControl1.ASPX.CS:
A Simple One Line of code will access Label of Second UserControl on the page and set the Text Property of that label with Selected Text of this DropDownList:

    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (!Page.IsPostBack) { }
    }
    protected void DropDownList1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        //reaching to get the _Page reference with NamingContainer Property and using FindControl method to get the Label
        //DropDownList1.NamingContainer will give reference of the UserControl1's instance reference on the page
        //DropDownList1.NamingContainer.NamingContainer will give reference of the _Page's reference
        //Using FindControl Method to find UserControl - Control2
        //again using FindControl Method to find Label inside UserControl - Control2
        ((Label)((UserControl)((Panel)DropDownList1.NamingContainer.NamingContainer.FindControl("Panel1")).FindControl("Control2")).FindControl("Label1")).Text = DropDownList1.SelectedItem.Text;
    }

WebUserControl2.ASPX (No Code in Code Behind):
Simple defining a Label:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="WebUserControl2.ascx.cs"
    Inherits="WebUserControl2" %>
<asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text="Label"></asp:Label>

Finally Default.ASPX Page (No Code in Code Behind):
Placing both the controls inside a Panel Server Container control:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>

<%@ Register Src="~/WebUserControl1.ascx" TagPrefix="kk1" TagName="Control1" %>
<%@ Register Src="~/WebUserControl2.ascx" TagPrefix="kk2" TagName="Control2" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
        <asp:Panel ID="Panel1" runat="server">
            <div>
                <kk1:Control1 ID="Control" runat="Server" />
            </div>
            <div>
                <kk2:Control2 ID="Control2" runat="Server" />
            </div>
        </asp:Panel>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

In, above example, you can see that with the benefit and use of NamingContainer Property; there doesn't require to take the reference of UserControl2 in UserControl1 to access Label inside. Thats it!

Fix for 'The database principal owns a schema in the database, and cannot be dropped' Error in SQL Server 2005

2008-08-30T06:12:00Z

I was trying to restore one database backup; which I successfully did (I'm using SQL Server 2005), and want to delete the users of the database which are restored along with the DB; I received this error which says "The database principal owns a schema in the database, and cannot be dropped".
While I googled the error, I found that the user which i want to delete is called "Database Principal" is having "DB_Owner" Role selected. That means the Database Pricipal I want to delete owns the Schema. One solution was to delete the Schema and then delete the user, :-) which I am obviously not going to do. Another Solution was to change the DB_Owner to some another "Database Principal"; let say to "dbo". I did it accordingly and then I was able to delete the user/Database Pricipal successfully.

To change the DB_Owner to some another "Database Principal"; simply Drill Down to your Database in Sql Server Management Studio and further more Drill Down to your_DB_Name > Schemas > db_owner > right click > select properties. You would find the name of the "Database Principal" that you want to delete. Change this to some another "Database Principal"; for Example, to "dbo".
You need to make the same changes to all the schemas where the "Database Principal" is having/owning the role. For Example, if it is having "db_owner, db_datareader, db_datawriter" roles; then you have to make the above said changes for all these 3 schemas.

You would find more details about this error and its solution at this page > Error Solution: Fix for 'The database principal owns a schema in the database, and cannot be dropped' Error in SQL Server 2005

Strip out HTML Tags to Display Plain Text in XSLT

2008-08-30T05:33:00Z

I was having a requirement with my on-going project, in which I need to display the Blog RSS on Home Page. I used BlogEngine.NET with some visual modification.
Now, on home page I need to display latest 4 entries of entered Blogs which I easily get thru RSS link from BlogEngine.NET.

But, the issue comes when I need to render the contents; that is latest 4 Blog entrties. They are entered using FCKEditor tool, So, I was getting text with HTML tags.
Because of BlogEngine.NET uses FCKEditor while posting a new Blog Entry, there are useless <p>, <div>, <Span>, <font> and   tags and values and fonts with different size and colors comes with the Blog Post entry. Specially, when people directly copy and paste some contents from another web source.

I need to Strip out these HTML tags and display Plain Text for a consistant look out on my home page, so these additional <p>, <div>, <Span>, <font> and   tags would not blot on my home page. To display RSS entries, means simply create a RSS Feed Reader (I think I will blog on that also), I used XSLT file to format the RSS content.

I found below function in XSLT which will remove HTML tags from my Description Field from DB (which is filled from FCKEditor):
Below is the function to remove HTML tags:

<xsl:template name="removeHtmlTags">
    <xsl:param name="html"/>
    <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="contains($html, '<')">
        <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($html, '<')"/>
        
        <xsl:call-template name="removeHtmlTags">
          <xsl:with-param name="html" select="substring-after($html, '>')"/>
        </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:when>
      <xsl:otherwise>
        <xsl:value-of select="$html"/>
      </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

You can see that the function name is removeHtmlTags which accepts one argument / parameter named as html which is my Description field that contains HTML Tags.
Logic is simple, its a recursive function which finds for '<' that is '<' means starting of any HTML Tag and take out the substring after this '<' Tag using substring-before() function as substring-before($html, '<') and again call the function with the rest of the string left after '>' that is '>' Tag.

This is how this function will be called:

    <xsl:template name="RssCell">
        <xsl:variable name="pureText">
            <xsl:call-template name="removeHtmlTags">
                <xsl:with-param name="html" select="DescriptionField" />
            </xsl:call-template>
        </xsl:variable>

        <div height='40' class='blog_text'>
            <xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="substring($pureText, 0, 175)"/>
        </div>
    </xsl:template>

One Variable is declared as pureText. removeHtmlTags() function will strip out the HTML Tags and return the Plain Text values in this pureText variable.
I am passsin DescriptionField that is my DB Field with HTML Tags.

Finally, I am displaying max 175 chars of Plain Text as substring($pureText, 0, 175) inside a DIV.

Thats It!

Strip out space from user input using JavaScript (ReplaceAll)

2008-08-29T10:39:00Z

While I was trying to strip out all space from user input using JavaScript, First I tried with using simple replace function like var strDest = strSrc.replace(" ",""). But, I see the result that it only replaces the first occurance of the space in source string. Intrestingly, I googled and found one solution to remove all the spaces from a string that is " / /gi" parameter. Here is the JavaScript to strip out spaces from a string/user input:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
    <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
    function CheckSpace()
    {
        var strSrc = document.getElementById('<%=TextBox1.ClientID%>').value;
        //here we need to give the string/char that we need to replace from source string
        //in my case it is space for I gave a space between two forward slashes as var spaceFix = / /gi;
        //if you want to replace for example all "a" then it should be written as var spaceFix = /a/gi;
        var spaceFix = / /gi;
        var strDest = strSrc.replace(spaceFix,"");
        alert(strDest);
        return false;
    }
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
        <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
        <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" OnClientClick="return CheckSpace();" /></div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>