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• May 20th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, .NET, Visual Studio, Silverlight, WPF

  Apologies for the sparseness of my posting the last few weeks - work and life have been busy here lately.  Below is a new post in my link-listing series to help kick things up a little.  Also check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials page and Silverlight Tutorials page for links to popular articles I've done myself in the past. ASP.NET Bulk Inserting Data with the ListView Control : Matt Berseth continues his awesome posts with one that shows how to handle bulk-editing of data using the ASP.NET ListView control in .NET 3.5. Master-Detail with the GridView, DetailsView, and ModalPopup Controls : Another great post from Matt that describes how to cleanly handle a common data entry scenario. Creating Great Thumbnail Images in ASP.NET : A really nice blog post by a different Matt that details an approach that generates high quality (and small) thumbnail images. Warning the User when Caps-Lock is on : Scott Mitchell has a nice article that describes how to automatically detect and warn users in login pages when the caps-lock button is on. ASP.NET Perf Issue: Large numbers of application-restarts due to virus scanners : Tess Ferrandez has a great post that details a debug session to determine why an ASP.NET application was restarting frequently (causing performance slowdowns).  The issue was a virus scanner that was causing files to be constantly updated.  Make sure to check out the logging code you can add to your application to identify restart causes like this. ASP.NET AJAX ASP.NET AJAX Progress Bar Control : Matt Berseth has another great article that describes his new ASP.NET AJAX Progress Bar control. Faster Page Loading By Combining Multiple JavaScript files in Batch : Omar Al Zabir (founder of PageFlakes.com and author of the great Building a Web 2.0 Portal with ASP.NET 3.5 book) has a good article that describes the performance benefit of merging multiple JavaScript file downloads.  Note that .NET 3.5 SP1 will include a new script combiner feature that helps make doing this even easier. Create ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls using the ScriptControl base class : Chris Pietschmann has a nice article that talks about how to build new ASP.NET AJAX server controls by deriving from the built-in ScriptControl base class. Inline Edit Box and Postback Ritalin Beta : Dave Ward and Mike Davis have created a new CodePlex project for their popular Inline Edit Box and PostBack Ritalin ASP.NET AJAX controls. .NET 7 Ways to Simplify your... Posted May 20 2008, 10:02 PM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight, .NET, Visual Studio, Atlas, Link Listing, LINQ

• ASP.NET Dynamic Data Preview Available

  A few months ago we released an ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview that contained a bunch of new features that will be shipping later this year (including ASP.NET AJAX Improvements, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Silverlight Support, and ASP.NET Dynamic Data). The ASP.NET Dynamic Data support within that preview provided a first look at a cool new feature that enables you to quickly build data driven web-sites that work against a LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entities object model.  ASP.NET Dynamic Data allows you to automatically render fully functional data entry and reporting pages that are dynamically constructed from your ORM data model meta-data.  In addition to supporting a dynamic rendering mode, it also allows you to optionally override and customize any of the view templates using any HTML or code you want (given you full control of the experience). ASP.NET Dynamic Data Preview Today we released an updated ASP.NET Dynamic Data Preview.  You can learn more about it and download it here . This new dynamic data preview now works with the standard built-in ASP.NET data controls (GridView, ListView, FormView, DetailsView, etc).  The dynamic data support enables these controls to automatically handle foreign-key relationships.  For example, on a gridview you'll now get automatic friendly name display of foreign key column values and automatic drop-down list selection support of these values when in edit mode: The new dynamic data support also provides automatic UI validation support (both client-side and server-side) based on the constraints you set on your data model classes.  For example, if a column in the database is limited to 50 characters in size, and is marked as non-nullable, appropriate UI control validators will automatically be applied by ASP.NET dynamic data to enforce this constraint in the UI pages as well.  If you change the constraints within your LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entities data model classes, the UI will automatically pick up these changes and enforce the new constraints on the next web request. In addition to standard data model metadata, you can also declare custom metadata to further control validation and the default display of UI of objects.  You will be able to use all of the above features with both LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities. Visual Studio Dynamic Data Project Wizard In addition to the core ASP.NET dynamic data runtime support, the VS web tools team today also shipped a first preview of a new dynamic... Posted Apr 10 2008, 12:44 AM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, LINQ, Data

• Tutorial: Data From a SQL DB via WCF (using LINQ)

  My 4th tutorial Displaying SQL Database Data in a DataGrid using LINQ and WCF is now available, as is the source code and a version of the tutorial in PDF For the moment, I recommend the PDF version as the images are clearer. We're fixing up the HTML versions of all the tutorials even as I write this. This tutorial walks through Creating a LINQ query against your SQL Server database Creating a WCF service to provide access to the results of your LINQ query Binding Silverlight 2 controls against the WCF service We will, over time have a way to provide direct feedback for each tutorial, but for now, please do send email or use the forums to ask questions about anything you read in the tutorials. Thanks again,   -jese Posted Apr 04 2008, 06:37 AM by Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek Filed under: tutorials, silverlight 2.0, LINQ, Learning Silverlight, Data Binding

• LINQ To SQL

  A number of folk have written to me in response to my 3rd tutorial asking that I spend some time focusing on how to obtain data from a SQL database. This is the topic for tutorial #4, to be released on April 1. A few interesting issues arose when writing that tutorial, and so I thought I'd start to discuss them even before the tutorial appears. Architecture The most straightforward way to deal with using Silverlight to present data from a Database is to create a Web Service whose job is to query the database in response to data coming from Silverlight and to return data in a form that your Silverlight application can use. Thus, the various skills that the tutorial must bring together include Creating a simple WCF Web Service Using LINQ to Sql to create the Queries Making sure the class is serializable Creating the Service Modifying the contract Implementing the contract Freezing the port Setting the Silverlight App to see the Web Service Calling a method in the service and getting back data Displaying the data Adding a DataGrid Understanding DataGrid properties Binding data to DataGrids While all of this is covered in the tutorial, there is plenty to dive into further, and I'll be doing so in this blog over the next few weeks. Using LINQ to Retrieve Data The tutorial assumes that you are somewhat familiar with LINQ. This new and powerful aspect of VB and C# is likely to be central to any Silverlight applications that interact with data, and you will want to take the time to learn about it (sooner or later). A good way to start is with ScottGu's tutorial - if you find you want more you might want to take a look at a good tutorial on VB 9 or on C# 3 (see some suggested titles at the bottom of this entry) Source Code To get started, open a new project of type WPF Application (!) -- We're going to do this in WPF to avoid dealing with web services for now. The point of this entry is just to look at the LINQ part. Visual Studio will set up your WPF application (look familiar? Isn't it cool how close WPF and Silverlight are? Don't get distracted! Pay attention in class!) Right click on the project and choose Add... When the Add New Item window opens, curse (again) that the Templates are not in alphabetical order and click on Linq To SQL Classes. Accept the default name (DataClasses1.dbml) and click Add. That will add DataClasses1.dbml to your project and open the Object Relational Designer which is just too cool a name. Open your Server explorer... Posted Mar 26 2008, 05:00 AM by Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek Filed under: tutorials, silverlight 2.0, LINQ, Learning Silverlight, Recommended Resources, Data Binding

• March 14th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC and .NET

  I'm slowly recovering from keynoting at MIX last week, and have been digging my way out of backlogged email the last few days.  I'm going to try and finish catching up on blog comments this weekend - apologies for the delay in getting back to some of your questions. To kick-start my blogging again I thought I'd post a new link-listing series .  Today's post is mostly focused on ASP.NET and web related links.  I'm going to be doing more Silverlight and WPF posts soon. ASP.NET Tag Cloud Filters with ASP.NET 3.5's LinqDataSource and ListView Controls : Matt Berseth has a cool post that shows off using LINQ to SQL and ASP.NET 3.5 to build a tag-cloud navigation UI. Five New ASP.NET Security Tutorials Now Available : Scott Mitchell continues his great ASP.NET security tutorials .  These 5 new ones (all in both VB and C#) cover using the ASP.NET membership system. Building a Vista Style Folder Browser with ASP.NET 3.5 and a Custom Hierarchical DataSource Control: Matt Berseth continues his great posts with a nice one that shows how to build a custom HierarchicalDataSourceControl to implement file browsing functionality using ASP.NET. ASP.NET AJAX New ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit Release: David Anson blogs about a new ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit release that the team made right before MIX.  This release includes a number of patches (including a bunch from the community) with bug fixes and improvements in a bunch of areas. LinkedIn Style Theme for the ASP.NET AJAX Tab Container Control: Matt Berseth posts some cool new themes you can use with the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit's tab control. ASP.NET AJAX In-Depth: Object Inheritance : Stephen Walther, author of the recently published ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed book , posts an incredibly in-depth article about how object inheritance is handled with ASP.NET AJAX. ASP.NET AJAX In-Depth: Creating JavaScript Properties: Stephen Walther continues his series with an in-depth article discussing how JavaScript Properties are handled with ASP.NET AJAX. ASP.NET AJAX In-Depth: Application Events : Yes another Stephen Walther article discussing how application events are handled with ASP.NET AJAX. ASP.NET AJAX Localization Slides and Code: Joel Rumerman has a nice post with samples + slides about how the localization features in ASP.NET AJAX work. JScript Intellisense: working with Ext JS : The VS web tools team enabled JQuery intellisense last month with the VS 2008 Web Development... Posted Mar 14 2008, 12:06 AM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, Atlas, Link Listing, LINQ, MVC

• Feb 17th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, Visual Studio, .NET

  Here is the latest in my link-listing series .  Also check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials page for links to popular articles I've done myself in the past. ASP.NET Top 10 Best Practices for Production ASP.NET Applications : Kyle has a nice post that summarizes a number of good best practices to follow when deploying your ASP.NET applications into production. Paging Through Data with the ASP.NET 3.5 ListView and DataPager Controls : Scott Mitchell continues his excellent series on the new ASP.NET 3.5 data control features.  In this latest article he shows how to page using the ListView and DataPager controls. ASP.NET AJAX How to install and use the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit in VS : Nannette Thacker has a nice post that details step-by-step how to install and use the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit controls within Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer. JavaScript Stack Traces in ASP.NET AJAX and JavaScript Error Publishing using ASP.NET AJAX : Joel Rumerman has put together two nice posts that detail some god ways to capture JavaScript stack trace information, as well as to report JavaScript errors using ASP.NET AJAX. ASP.NET AJAX History Tutorials : Jonathan Carter has published a good series of tutorials that demonstrate how to use the new ASP.NET AJAX History support that we'll be shipping later this year (it is currently available in the ASP.NET Extensions CTP download).  This enables you to add forward/back button navigation support within AJAX applications. Using JQuery with VS 2008 JavaScript Intellisense : One of the improvements we shipped in our recent VS 2008 Hotfix Roll-Up last week was to address issues with JavaScript intellisense support for JQuery (another popular AJAX framework).  Brennan Stehling, James Hart, and Lance Fisher have done blog posts recently that discuss how to enable even richer JQuery intellisense inside VS 2008 using intellisense-friendly JQuery libraries that are referenced while coding (and then swapped out for the real library at runtime).  You can read their blog posts about how this works here and here and here . ASP.NET MVC Tip: Submitting an AJAX Form with JQuery : While on the subject of JQuery, I thought I'd link to a post in Mike Bosch's ASP.NET MVC series that shows how you can integrate JQuery in the browser on the client with the ASP.NET MVC framework on the server. Visual Studio Visual Studio Programmer Themes Gallery: Visual Studio enables you to customize the... Posted Feb 17 2008, 11:01 AM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, Visual Studio, Atlas, Link Listing, LINQ

• Jan 24th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, Visual Studio, .NET, IIS

  I just arrived back from my trip from Asia, and decided to celebrate (since I'm jet-lagged and can't sleep) with a new post in my link-listing series .  You can check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials page for links to popular articles I've done myself in the past. ASP.NET Extending the GridView to Include Sort Arrows : Scott Mitchell has a nice article that describes how to add a visual indicator to the GridView control to indicate the current sort order on columns. Using ASP.NET 3.5's ListView and DataPager Controls: Sorting Data : Scott Mitchell continues his ListView control series with a good article on enabling sorting scenarios with the new ListView control. Building a Grouping Grid with the ListView and LinqDataSource Controls : Matt Berseth has an awesome post that shows off using the new ListView control and LinqDataSource controls to build a hierarchical grouping grid.  A post to bookmark. Using the ListView, DataPager and LinqDataSource Controls : Matt Berseth has a good tutorial post that shows off using these new controls to join data from two database tables using LINQ. Some ASP.NET 3.5 ListView Control Examples : Mike Ormond has a nice post that provides a number of samples that show how to use the new ASP.NET ListView control.  For even more ListView articles, check out my last link-listing post which pointed to a bunch of them. Large File Uploads in ASP.NET : Jon Galloway has a nice post that provides some good details on handing large file uploads using ASP.NET. ASP.NET AJAX Four ASP.NET AJAX JavaScript UI Methods You Should Learn : Dave Ward has another great post in his series about ASP.NET AJAX's client-side JavaScript Helper Methods . Five Tab Themes Created for the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit : Matt Berseth posts some really cool themes created for the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit's Tab control. Very slick! CNN Style Scrolling Ticker with the Marquee Toolkit Control : Matt Berseth posts another great one that shows how to implement a scrolling marquee UI using the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. Visual Studio Did You Know?: Lisa Feigenbaum from the VB team has posted a really cool series of blog posts that talk about some of the new VS 2008 editor and IDE features.  Read Part 1: Intellisense Everywhere , Part 2: IntelliSense is now Transparent , Part 3: Ctrl+Tab to Navigate Windows , Part 4: What You Can Do with Debugger DataTips , and Part 5: VB IntelliSense now filters as you type... Posted Jan 24 2008, 11:08 PM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, Visual Studio, Link Listing, LINQ, IIS7

• Dynamic LINQ (Part 1: Using the LINQ Dynamic Query Library)

  LINQ (language integrated query) is one of the new features provided with VS 2008 and .NET 3.5.  LINQ makes the concept of querying data a first class programming concept in .NET, and enables you to efficiently express queries in your programming language of choice. One of the benefits of LINQ is that it enables you to write type-safe queries in VB and C#.  This means you get compile-time checking of your LINQ queries, and full intellisense and refactoring support over your code: While writing type-safe queries is great for most scenarios, there are cases where you want the flexibility to dynamically construct queries on the fly.  For example: you might want to provide business intelligence UI within your application that allows an end-user business analyst to use drop-downs to build and express their own custom queries/views on top of data.  Traditionally these types of dynamic query scenarios are often handled by concatenating strings together to construct dynamic SQL queries.  Recently a few people have sent me mail asking how to handle these types of scenarios using LINQ.  The below post describes how you can use a Dynamic Query Library provided by the LINQ team to dynamically construct LINQ queries. Downloading the LINQ Dynamic Query Library Included on the VS 2008 Samples download page are pointers to VB and C# sample packages that include a cool dynamic query LINQ helper library.  Direct pointers to the dynamic query library (and documentation about it) can be found below: VB Dynamic Query Library (included in the \Language Samples\LINQ Samples\DynamicQuery directory) C# Dynamic Query Library (included in the \LinqSamples\DynamicQuery directory) Both the VB and C# DynamicQuery samples include a source implementation of a helper library that allows you to express LINQ queries using extension methods that take string arguments instead of type-safe language operators.  You can copy/paste either the C# or VB implementations of the DynamicQuery library into your own projects and then use it where appropriate to more dynamically construct LINQ queries based on end-user input. Simple Dynamic Query Library Example You can use the DynamicQuery library against any LINQ data provider (including LINQ to SQL , LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML, LINQ to Entities, LINQ to SharePoint , LINQ to TerraServer , etc).  Instead of using language operators or type-safe lambda extension methods to construct your LINQ queries, the dynamic... Posted Jan 07 2008, 11:02 PM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, Visual Studio, LINQ

• New ASP.NET Dynamic Data Support

  The ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP we shipped this past weekend contains a bunch of great new features. One of the cool new features is something we call "ASP.NET Dynamic Data Support".  In a nutshell this enables you to really quickly build data driven web-sites that work against a LINQ to SQL (and in the future LINQ to Entities) object model - and optionally allows you to-do this without having to build any pages manually. The best way to see this in action is to watch David Ebbo's awesome 17 minute screen-cast : You can also follow the steps below to easily get started and use the dynamic data support: Step 1: Create a ASP.NET Dynamic Data Site: Once you have the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP release installed, you can use VS 2008 or the free Visual Web Developer 2008 Express to create a new Web Site or Web Application Project that has the ASP.NET dynamic data support enabled: This will create a new web-site you can use that has some default template files in them, along with CSS style-sheets you can use to customize the look and feel of them: Step 2: Add a LINQ to SQL Data Model to Your Site LINQ to SQL is an O/RM (object relational mapper) that ships in .NET 3.5, and which allows you to model a relational database using .NET classes.  You can then query the database using LINQ, as well as update/insert/delete data from it.  LINQ to SQL fully supports transactions, views, and stored procedures.  It also provides an easy way to integrate data validation and business logic rules into your data model. The easiest way to get started with an ASP.NET Dynamic Data site is to add a new LINQ to SQL data model to your project (right-click->add new item->LINQ to SQL Classes item).  This will bring up the LINQ to SQL class designer.  Drag database tables from your server explorer to define a set of classes (with relationships) for your database schema: Step 3: Enable Dynamic Templates in Your Project: By default ASP.NET Dynamic Data projects provide built-in support for creating automatic "scaffolding" views of your LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities data models.  Dynamic Data projects include template pages and user controls that can automatically create built-in data browsing/editing/selection/deleting UI that is dynamically constructed at runtime based on the LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entities data model you've added to your project. To enable this auto-scaffolding support, open the web.config file of your... Posted Dec 14 2007, 12:41 AM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, LINQ, Data