Search results matching tag 'VS2008'

Tip#97: Did you know… How to Display Hidden Information in Design View

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:20:01 GMT

The design view in Visual Studio can display glyphs and borders for the hidden non - graphic elements (such as div, span, form, and script elements). This feature helps you to see where the elements are and avoid inadvertently deleting the non-graphic elements from your page while editing.

To enable it in designer click on View -> Formatting Marks -> Show

Now you will start seeing the hidden elements on the designer surface.

Hope this helps,

Deepak Verma
SDET | Visual Web Developer

Tip #92: Did you know … How to select a master page using 'Select a Master Page' dialog?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:02:20 GMT

Master page for a Web form can always be set manually in the source code, but here is an option to select the master page while create the webform using the 'Select a Master Page' dialog.

The path to select a Master page using the 'Select a master page' dialog is different for a Web application project than for a Web site.

For a Web Application project:

Right click solution explore. Select Add and then select New Item
From the Add new Item dialog select Web content form and click on Add button.
Select a Master Page dialog would appear. Navigate thru the project folders to select the Master page & click on OK button. The aspx added would now be using the selected master page.

For a Web site project:

While adding a Webform, check the select master page checkbox and click on the Add button.
Select a Master Page dialog would appear. Navigate thru the project folders to select the Master page & click on OK button. The aspx added would now be using the selected master page.

Hope this helps,

Deepak Verma
SDET | Visual Web Developer

Tip #82: Did you know... How to migrate Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Project to Visual Studio 2008

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:32:56 GMT

Following steps highlight how a Visual Studio 2005 Web application project can be migrated to Visual Studio 2008.

Take backup of the original project
Open Visual Studio 2008
Click File -> Open Project and browse to the folder to open the project
You will receive the following conversion wizard to help you convert the solution or project to the current version. Click Next.
Select Yes on this screen if you want the wizard to help you to take the backup, otherwise select No and Click Next.
Be sure to read the summary on this screen & click finish
As soon as you click finish, you will see an upgrade prompt. Click yes if you want to upgrade to the latest framework otherwise Click No. If you select yes to upgrade, the project file as well as web.config file is updated for the latest framework. It's recommended to select the checkbox to do the same for all webs in this solution.
The conversion wizard would show you the status, select Show the log to see the log and click close.

For projects using Ajax you might need to install ASP.NET Ajax Extensions 1.0 in VS 2008 if you said no to upgrade. Please see Tip #62 to learn how to install it.

Hope this helps,

Deepak Verma
SDET | Visual Web Developer

Tip #69: Did you know…The keyboard shortcut for View in Browser?

Anonymous — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:27:35 GMT

Ctrl +Shift+W does the trick for you.

This short cut is mentioned under File Menu -> View in Browser.

So if you are still using Select File -> Right click for context menu and then selecting View in Browser as shown below, you may want to start using Ctrl+Shift+W.

Reshmi Mangalore

SDET, Visual Web Developer

Tip #68 Did you know… How simple it is to attach an existing style sheet to your web page?

Anonymous — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:19:01 GMT

Open an existing web site in VWD. Open the page by double clicking on it in solution explorer to which you want to attach the existing style sheet in your web site.

Now, switch to Design View of the page and bring up Select Style Sheet dialog by clicking on menu: Format –> Attach Style Sheet as shown below.

Click the OK button and this will add a link to the Style sheet that you selected in the Select Style Sheet dialog. Now you can make use of all the styles described in this style sheet.

<head runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
    <link href="StyleSheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head></PRE< P>

Alternatively, you can just switch the page to which you want to add the link and Drag Drop the style sheet from solution explorer to the page in which you want to make use of the styles. The drag drop action adds the above piece of code to source view.

Reshmi Mangalore

SDET, Visual Web Developer

Tip #61: Did you know… How to create an ASP.Net Dynamic Data Web Site?

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:54:22 GMT

If your web site is heavily data driven then here is a quick and easy way for you to create one without writing much code. All you need is Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or Visual Web Developer 2008 Express SP1 installed on your box.

Dynamic Data Web Sites makes use of a mechanism called Scaffolding. When Scaffolding is enabled it lets ASP.Net go through your data model and generate web pages for your tables. These generated pages have Insert, Delete and Update capabilities for each table.

Here are the steps:

Step 1: Create a Dynamic Data Web Site.

Go to File ->New Web Site and select Dynamic Data Web Site template. Give it a name and select the location and language to be used. Click Ok button.

Step 2: Add data to your Web Site.

Copy paste pubs.mdf file that you want to use in your App_Data folder.

Step 3: Create a Data model using LINQ to SQL.

Right click on App_code and Add New LINQ to SQL Classes. On selecting the LINQ to SQL Classes the DataClasses.dbml opens up in your O/R Designer.

Step 4: Drag drop tables to Object Relational Designer.

Now drag drop Authors table on to the O/R Designer from server explorer and save DataClassses.dbml.

Step 5: Look what VS has created for you.

Note that there are two files DataClasses.dbml.layout and DataCalsses.designer.vb present under the .dbml file node.

Open DataCalsses.designer.vb, and you can see that there is a Partial Public Class DataClassesDataContext. This file also contains an entity class for Author table (Partial Public Class author).

Step 6: Register the data context in Global.asax file.

Open global.asax page and add the following lines of code in RegisterRoutes method.

VB code:

model.RegisterContext(GetType(AdventureWorksDataContext), _ New ContextConfiguration() With {.ScaffoldAllTables = True})

C# code:

model.RegisterContext(typeof(AdventureWorksDataContext), new ContextConfiguration() { ScaffoldAllTables = true });

Save the file.

Step 7: View the page in Browser

Now you can view default.aspx page using View in Browser. This will show you a link for Authors table.

Click on the table name and you will see a page with data from Authors Table. There is also readymade option for you to Edit, Delete and Insert new data.

Try this today and have fun!

Reshmi Mangalore

SDET, Web Development Tools

Tip#57: Did you know… How to manage web site configuration through a web interface

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:37:10 GMT

The Web Site Administration Tool provides a web interface for you to manage different web site configuration settings. To launch the tool, for Web Application Project click Project-> ASP.Net Configuration & for Websites, click Website-> ASP.Net Configuration

Visual Studio launches the tool in a browser window. You can use the tabs on the top to navigate & change various settings.

You can read more in detail for the various settings that can be managed using the tool here.

Deepak Verma
SDET | Visual Web Developer

Tip # 53: Did you know... How to edit the templates for gridview in VS designer?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:44:04 GMT

Gridview control has the flexibility to be configured how it's rendered using templates. Following steps show how the control's edit template can be changed in the Visual Studio Designer.

I have a GridView hooked up to Sqldatasource using Northwind.products. I have selected Generate Insert, update and delete statements while configuring the sql data source (by clicking the Advanced button)
Click on smart task for grid view & select Enable Editing check box for the grid view
Now to convert a column to use Template field. Select Edit columns from the Grid view Smarttask.
Select the column name in the selected fields list and click on Convert this field into TemplateField & click OK
Select Edit Templates from the gridview smarttask
From the Display drop down select EditItemTemplate
You will see the following
You can update the template now. For example, I have dragged dropped requireFiledValidator into it
If there are multiple columns converted to templates, you will see something like this & can select a particular column template to be edited.
Switching to the source view, you will find that VS has generated the source code for the template changes done.
Click on 'End template editing' from the smart task to exit editing the template

Deepak Verma
SDET | Visual Web Developer

Tip #40: Did you know…How to scope master pages?

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:50:08 GMT

Master page is a template page that can be used to create a consistent layout for your application. First you create a master page to define the look & feel of the application and then you create the content pages that contains the content.

You can attach these content pages to the master page at the following three levels:

Page Level: You can use the page directive on each of the content pages

<@Page Language="VB" MasterPageFile="~/Main.master"%>

Or programmatically set it in the content page Page_PreInit Event

for VB
Protected Sub Page_PreInit(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.PreInit
        Me.MasterPageFile = "~/Main.master"
End Sub

for C#
protected void Page_PreInit(Object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.MasterPageFile = "~/Main.Master";
        }
Application Level : By specifying the following in web.config file, all the aspx files will use the master page as Main.master (If aspx file does not contain a Content control, the master page won't be applied to it )

<configuration>
    <system.web>
               <pages masterPageFile="~/Main.master" />
   </system.web>
</configuration>

[You will notice that the pages node already exists in web.config, add the masterPageFile attribute to this node]
Folder Level: By specifying the following in web.config all the aspx files in a specified folder (admin) will use the master page as Admin.master (If aspx file does not contain a Content control, the master page won't be applied to it )

<configuration>
    <location path="admin">
    <system.web>
               <pages masterPageFile="~/Admin.master" />
   </system.web>
   </location>
</configuration>

[you will notice system.web already exists, leave it as it is & add a new node 'location' with the above content under 'configuration']

By setting master page programmatically or thru web.config you may not get the Visual Studio master page design time features.

Deepak Verma
SDET | Visual Web Developer

Tip #37: Did you know…How to organize usings?

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 07:28:52 GMT

Overtime C# source code files may have unnecessary & unorganized using directives. Visual Studio IDE organize using options can help you to unclutter the source code.

To organize the C# code right click anywhere inside the code editor, select Organize usings.

Select Remove Unused Usings to remove any using directives that are not used in the source code (this may remove some required using directives if the source code doesn't build)
Select Sort Usings to organize alphabetically the using directives (by default directives that begin with System comes before other using directives)
Select remove and Sort to perform both of the above operations

Thanks,
Deepak Verma
SDET | Visual Web Developer