How to develop a web browser using c# .net using installed.net libraries and without using the web browser control? - asp.net

I have searched the internet for 2 days having found no answer to the below requirement. What i found most were GeckoFX and CefSharp which are external packages and not installed libraries. How can this be done?
I have been asked to do the following:
Use a suitable library function out of the set of libraries installed with the .NET platform. You must not use the C# WebBrowser class but perform the required HTTP-level communication directly from within your code. The code must clearly identify the HTTP-level client-server communication and must explicitly manage Home page, Favourite, History Lists and Tabs.
Optionally, you may add functionality to render a web page, but there must be an option to disable this functionality and to show only the raw HTML that has been retrieved.
Thanks

What have you attempted so far and what problem are you encountering?
Maybe read this first :)
Currently it sounds like you have been given an interview or homework task that you dont know how to solve. If so, then you should have some idea on where to start or you are in the wrong course or job interview. If you want help, then try to solve the question yourself and ask for help when you are stuck. Tell us what you have tried, show the code you currently have and let us know where you are stuck or what doesnt work as expected.
Where are you stuck? Fetching the webpage? Building the user interface?

Related

I need help integrating and using elFinder with ASP.NET

I have been playing with this for a day and cannot seem to get it to work.
elFinder has many options for connections, such as PHP and Python among others. Someone made a third party ASP.NET connector for it and it was reported that it worked.
Here is the page for the DLL for it:
http://elfinderconnectornet.codeplex.com/releases/view/55319
I am having tremendous trouble figuring out how to hook the existing elFinder to ASP.NET.
I hope to find someone who has had some experience with this and can assist me. I'm not sure what other information I can give you.
Any help is appreciated.
There's an even better option right now called ElFinder.Net Connector hosted at CodePlex. The coordinator and main developer of the port Evgeny Noskov is a super considerate person and he listens to feedback and acts as you can read here in a discussion I posted:
Add startPath and uploadMaxSize to connector options
I liked elFinder.Net so much that I wrote a post to showcase a simple use case that is a great fit for it:
Manage folders & files in your ASP.NET MVC app with elFinder.Net
Hope it helps.
See here: http://elfinderaspnet.codeplex.com/
For now it provides some basic functionality but seems to be usable.
ElFinder is very easy to configure and use.
I did some research on 'Implementing ElFinder on multiple pages using MVC' and found "ElFinder.Net Connector" NOT AVAILABLE.
Download the simple MVC sample project from here

Is there any good way of SELF-updating running web application?

as stated - it needs to be a "self-update" similar like Wordpress... I haven't thought through because of my knowledge limits... (I haven't found any good answer from the web yet /asp.net c#)
anyone can give some help/ perhaps some code example would be better?
Thanks in advance!
I dont have the code, But i can tell you the general concept behind that.
Keep a public API/ Webservice which returns the latest version number of the site/ app.
In your website/ app, add a method which makes a call to this service to get the latest version number. compare it with what you have in your local application. If the one you received from the service is different than the one you have, That means there is a new version available. Then show a link to download the latest version.

Connecting to an API offered by a Company

I currently have an internal system that I need to link up to an API offered by a company. I am not looking for hand-holding on this, I really need to understand where and how to get started really.
Here is the developer resource for the API I am looking to work with:
http://wiki.cdyne.com/index.php/Postal_Address_Verification
Further, my systems are currently in ASP/ASP.NET & SQL, and I'm familiar with VB so I would rather stay that direction instead of C#.
Can I get some direction on how to tackle this? Thanks a lot for the help!
The easy way is to add a Service Reference in your project. Right-click the project in Solution Explorer and choose "Add Service Reference...". Copy the WSDL URL (from the documentation page you linked) into the address box and click Go. More: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb628652%28v=VS.90%29.aspx
Use "WCFpav" as the Namespace to match the examples.
You should be able to use the C# example, just change the syntax for VB.Net (or use a converter, but it's a simple exercise).
Note: the Add Service Reference wizard is available in VS2008 and VS2010.

How to get a web page to return a value to a Desktop application caller?

I am trying to create a moderately complex web page. This is not something I have ever done before, and nor do I feel happy about doing it, but I need to do it. I am not asking you to write it for me, mealy tell me what to research and learn, so that I can hopefully, eventually get it done.
I have not got a clue about how to start, and this is my question.
I need to make an autoupdater for my application. This has been done, and it is working perfectly. However, my application currently downloads version.txt, and reads it to work out whether it needs to download the new application. This is hideous, and slow, and was only supposed to be very temporary. It is also very annoying that we have to update this file every time we release a new version.
My boss wants me to create a webpage that reads the version data from the uploaded .exe, and then returns that to the Desktop application. Therefore, I would be able to call www.example.com/version.aspx, and it would return the version number, such as 1.1. I could then compare to the current version (don't worry, it is generated on the fly, and not hard coded) and then I could download the application if required.
Here comes my question. How would I go about this? I have heard of CGI scripts, and asp.net. Which one of these has the power to solve my problem. If you could just tell me that, then I will be all sorted, as I could read up on it, learn, and broaden my knowledge.
If this is not possible, or not easily possible, is there any way of reading the file version of a remote .exe, without downloading it. This would also be preferable in many ways.
Thank you so much, and I am so sorry for my complete ignorance in this topic.
Richard
P.S. I did try to explain this to my boss, and suggested that maybe he could either do it, or help me, but he is not very good at web applications, and refused, saying that it would broaden my education in this matter. Ahhh!
EDIT: Somehow forgot to add: I normally program in C#, although this application should be so small, that it would not really matter. Also, C# code would be ideal, if there is a way to check the version of a file on a remote server.
EDIT: Thanks!
If you can read the version of some exe file from within a desktop application, using C#, then you can use the exact same code to read it from within an ASP.Net web application.
The advantage of asp.net over CGI (in your case) is that you can use C# in the backend.
A couple of hints:
Server.MapPath("file.exe") returns the complete pathname of a "file.exe" next to the requested aspx file, independent of where you install that web-application.
If you only want to return the version number, use
this code:
Response.Clear();
Response.Write(versionnumber);
Response.End();
in a Page_Load method, after you have read the versionnumber of the exe, of course.

Providing SaaS functionality to a .NET portal with DLLs

I'm not sure I'm asking the right question here, but I'm looking to provide web based functionality from one ASP.NET application to another remote 'portal-like' application. Is it possible to simply give the portal a DLL? As an example, let's say the SaaS web app has a patient-entry form that I want to be able to use from the portal application. I would like the portal app to be able to set preferences (permissions, color, style, etc), make a function call, and have that capability presented within a certain div or something. Is there any .NET technologies that provide this kind of integration?
EDIT:
Here is a link to a quick diagram I made trying to describe the scenario: http://img.ly/ESG. I know there are other ways of doing this (eg JSON-P calls), but I need to give the portal developers something they can control on their end. Also, if anything changes they'll know I will send them a new version of the DLL which will indicate to them the new functionality.
I'll give you a shopping list of things to check out:
DotNetNuke:
http://www.dotnetnuke.com/
Workflow Foundation -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663328.aspx
Microsoft SAAS platform -
http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/saas/default.mspx
Depending on exactly what you're looking for, you might also research "multitenancy".
To answer your original question, yes, you can do it with DLL's, but there are easier ways to do it.

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