Referencing assets in ASP.NET Core - asp.net

I started with an ASP.NET MVC Core 2.1 project. Then, I loaded a 3rd party theme (html/css/javascript/fonts) into wwwroot folder of the project. When I open the .html files from wwwroot, all appears fine.
I now want to "cut" the theme into MVC parts -- _Layout.html, views, etc. When html content is placed into MVC views, do I need to prefix every link with "~"? For example, href="css/colors/orange.css" becomes href="~/css/colors/orange.css"? This seems like a lot of work. Is there any way to tell .NET that relative paths are off wwwroot?
And a related question -- I don't have to use MVC - if I used ASP.NET Core non-MVC project, would this not be an issue?
Thanks.

The tilde is used to resolve virtual folders. For example, if I put my app in a virtual folder app1 in IIS, then href="~/path" would be translated to href="/app1/path". If you aren't using virtual folders then you shouldn't need the tilde.
Additional
href="css/colors/orange.css" is relative to the folder you are in. It is expecting css to be a child of the current folder. If you were to add a leading slash then it would be an implied absolute path with the leading slash being root. href="/css/colors/orange.css" would expect css to be a child of your root folder. If you aren't using virtual folders as explained above you would still need to add a leading slash since css will always be a child of root.

Related

How to reorganize contents like the old school in ASP.NET Core MVC?

I have a web site in ASP.NET Core MVC, and I don't want to put my contents inside another folder. I just want to use the old school of creating this file-system architecture at the root of my project's folder:
Styles
Fonts
Scripts
Images
But I can't make ASP.NET Core MVC serving files from them. For example http://domain.test/styles/default.css returns 404.
I've tried to add StaticFileOptions, but I can't get it to work.
Can you help please?
I tried the given solution, that is, to use UseWebRoot("") with empty string to make it refer to the root of my web project. Yet it still returns 404.
I created a Styles folder inside the \bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.0\ and added a Styles.css there and it served the file.
If you are not adding them on the wwwroot folder then you should do more preparation.
This link will help Working with static files in ASP.NET Core
I think before asking you should search some more. For example
this stackoverflow question will help you:
How to Configure an Alternative Folder to wwwroot in ASP.NET Core?

ASP domain and files

I have no idea about asp, but I had to do some modifications in a web site, an easy modification. So I downloaded all files from server and I did all the modifications in Visual Studio 2013. Then I tested each page in the local host and it was perfect.
When I uploaded the files, I created a folder called "development", to tested it before I changed in the real site, so, my real site is for example "www.realsite.com" and my new folder is inside, with all the file, so I write in my url "www.realsite.com/development" and it shows the page, but not the one I had modified, but the real site. I want to know if there is a config file to change the path of the development site to see the changes I make and not the real site, because if I click in the development site a menu, it sends me to the page in the real site.
I hope you can help me with this,
Thank you!
PS: Do you know what is the meaning of "~/" in for example : src="~/folder/folder/xxxx.xx"
This is because the URLs in the project are using absolute paths, all pointing to the root. If they were using relative paths, moving the project to a folder and running it from there would work just file.
The difference:
... <-- absolute, note the leading slash
... <-- relative, no leading slash
Well, it depends on what kind of changes you are referring to, what kind of ASP.net site (or application).
The ~/ in ASP.Net means "path from application root". A subfolder (the new folder you created) in an existing application is just that, a folder. It is not "another application root". So if the existing code refers to "its root", e.g. where it uses ~/, it's probably not what you would expect..
Again, not enough info, but if you experience more unexpected behavior, it will probably be because of this (application scope).
Ref: ASP.NET Web Project Paths
ASP.NET includes the Web application root operator (~), which you can use when specifying a path in server controls. ASP.NET resolves the ~ operator to the root of the current application.
Hth...

How might i setup my ASP.NET project to find my files?

edit I do not want to redirect pages, specific files etc. I would like to change the path where images, videos and other media are stored from the root source directory to the directory of my choosing. In this case c:/dev/prjfiles/prjname/public (c:/dev/prjfiles/prjname/ is my working directory) and i except when my html does img src="/pic.png" it will find the image in c:/dev/prjfiles/prjname/publi/pic.png. I need a working solution, i tried looking at how to set virtual directories and etc. I cant figure it out. Thus the bounty. I am generating the html, i am not writing asp:image runat="server" etc i am pulling data from a DB and outputing the html. The part that is still a WIP is the code that handles POST request. The html already exist but i cant have hundreds of files in site.com/here pollution my source directory (c:/dev/trunk/thisprj/thisprj/where my .aspx files are and i do not wish 500 .png/gif/jpg here)
I dont know how asp.net environments are usually set up. I am assuming i have a root path that is not available from the web, a bin/ where i may put my asp.net dll and a public where i stick in any files i want.
I would like to have my project files seperated from everything else. My JS, css and image files are in prjfiles/prjname/public with my sqlite db in prjfiles/prjname/ and extra binaries in prjfiles/prjname/bin.
The problem comes when i run my app and try to load an image. Such as /cssimg/error.png. My project does not find resource in my /public folder and i have no idea how to make it find them. How can i set my project up so it does?
NOTE: I set the working directory path so its at prjfiles/prjname/. In code i write ./bin/extrabin.exe and db.sqlite3 which access the files properly.
You might want to watch the getting started videos for ASP.NET
http://www.asp.net/get-started/
EDIT: More info added
As #Murph suggests, your assumptions are incorrect.
IIS takes care of blocking HTTP access to any important files and folders like your *.aspx.cs, and *.cs in the App_Code, any DLLs, anything under the App_Data directory and the web.config.
Content files, such as *.html, *.css, *.js, .gif, .jpg, .png are all served in the normal manner.
In this way, there is no need for a "public" folder.
I dont know how asp.net environments are usually set up. I am assuming i have a root path that is not available from the web, a bin/ where i may put my asp.net dll and a public where i stick in any files i want.
This is wrong assumption!
You have a root folder, which IS available in public. You set IIS or ASP.NEt Development Server to this folder.
(optional, but always needed) You have a web.config file in this root folder for configuration
You have a bin folder for your assemblies (each page or user control "include" compiles to a class)
(optional) You have App_Data as default folder for file-based DBs and/or other data files (say XML storage, ..)
(optional) You have an App_theme folder for styling and images. Read about ASP.NET themes.
(optional) You can add App_Code folder if you want to add classes to be compiled by the server.
You can create folders for scripts, etc...
Normally for complex logic, etc.. you create in a separate project outside the root and reference the result assembly in the bin folder.
Seriously, you cannot do ASP.NET work without an IDE or a manual. Visual Web Developer 2008 Express IDE is free and http://asp.net has tons of resources for getting started.
I don't know if I got the question right, but maybe you could try the <BASE> HTML tag.
HTML <base> Tag
"Specify a default URL and a default target for all links on a page"
There's a nice and simple example at W3Schools, check it out.
The negative side is that you need to put a <BASE> tag in each page you want.
It sounds like you should be able to create a virtual directory to do what you're asking -- but it's a very non-standard setup.
Keep in mind that IIS will prevent users from downloading DLLs and other project-level files, so you usually don't need to partition them off in a separate layer.
For example, just have a cssimg folder at the top level of your project, and skip the whole public folder thing.
I see where you're coming from. ASP.NET projects are set up a little differently from how you're treating them, but you can make them work like you want.
The root of an ASP.NET project IS publicly accessible. When you created your WebSite within Visual Studio, it created a default.aspx page right on the root. Are you hosting in IIS? If so, it's set up to serve up default.aspx by default. But I digress.
Here's how to make it work like you want (mostly):
Create a WebSite, then right-click the site and add a folder named "prjfiles". Right-click that folder and make another named "public". Create another subfolder of that one called "cssimg".
Now, if you want to use the image you mentioned, you'd reference it like this: "~/prjfiles/public/cssimg/error.png" (pathing starting with the root) or "./cssimg/error.png" if you're coming from a page in the public folder (relative pathing).
Really, though, you're doing too much work. Here's how to make it work with less effort:
Create your WebSite, right-click the project and add a folder called "cssimg".
Treat the root as you would the "public" folder- put your pages right there on the root or in subfolders, as needed. You can reference that same image file like this now: "./cssimg/error.png" (relative) or "~/cssimg/error.png" (start from root)
There's also another way to tell the engine where to look for resources, but it's for your css files. Inside the "head" tag, you can add a "style" element (with type="text/css") and inside that you can add something like this: #import '<%= ResolveUrl("~/prjfiles/public/cssimg/styles.css") %>';
Good luck!
If I correctly understood your problem, you're trying to find files which aren't physically stored on a filesystem folder, or stay on a different folder. You can deal with this problems by implementing a UrlRewrite mechanism.
I suggest you to read URL Rewriting in ASP.NET and, after, to take a look into this implementation: A Complete URL Rewriting Solution for ASP.NET 2.0.
If I understand all this correctly (please comment with any correction) right now all your files are together in the root directory and you use <img src="/img.png" /> and it works.
If this is the case, make another directory in the directory the images are in, say call that directory images and put the image files there. now use <img src="/images/img.png" />.
Done.

Can i put URL rewriting http module in a folder?

I am trying to make a generic URL rewrite methods, and i want it portable so i checked this article: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/02/26/tip-trick-url-rewriting-with-asp-net.aspx which is very nice.
But i want to put all my classes, http modules in one folder, then i can just paste this folder in any asp.net website and edit the web.config to point to this http module, thats it, without the need to add anything in the APP_Code as this article teaching.
My question is is that possible? any conc or better ideas?
The ASP.NET runtime only looks by default in a limited number of folders for code files that it compiles on the fly -- App_Code (and its subfolders) is one of them. If you place code in an arbitrary folder, it won't be found.
The usual approach for what you describe is to build a DLL, and then drop it into the web site's bin folder. You would then have a separate project in Visual Studio for building the DLL. Using a subfolder in App_Code is another possibility.
You could also put your DLL into the GAC, which would make it accessible to all sites on a server.
You always can to compile that code into an assembly (.dll), place it inside your /bin folder and to update your web.config file.

adding .net code to a classic asp website, can't reference namespaces in .dll file

I have an existing fairly large classic asp website, with virtual directories configured to centralize certain resources. My problem is for some reason I can't access any of my namespaces and classes. I tried adding a reference to another project where I have classes in a namespace "DAL" and even though intellisense sees the classes and the website compiles fine, it errors when I try to access any page that references a class in the "DAL" namespace.
I get the following error message in my browser "CS0103: The name 'CMS' does not exist in the current context". Part of the problem is website project's root is not the same folder/level as the web root in IIS. So my libraries are in the website root "/bin" folder, but iis is looking for these files in the IIS webroot which is at a lower level. So how can I get .net to see my binaries without putting them in the lower IIS website root directory? I tried setting up a virtual directory to my .dll file but it seems to have no effect.
thank you for your help!
======================CLARIFICATION====================
What I'm trying to do is keep the .dll files I want my website to use in a higher level directory then the folder I have set as the web root in IIS. So say the library i want to use it "DAL" it in the projects /bin folder, but under IIS the default site's Local Path is set to "/site/default". The only way I can seem to use the "DAL" library is by putting the /bin folder into "/site/default/bin", which for this project is not an option. Does this help?
Using an NTFS Junction Point to achieve what sounds like the same goal has been working for me.
By way of an example, I have a web site with 20+ child IIS Applications that are largely identical (don't ask!), rather than duplicating the 'bin' folder in each of these (they would be identical) each child application has a 'bin' junction that points to the 'bin' folder in the web site root.
/bin <- this is the actual 'bin' folder
/app1
/app1/bin <- this is a junction point
/app2
/app2/bin <- this is a junction point
/app3
/app3/bin <- this is a junction point
/images
...
...
To create these junction points, if you're using Vista/Win2k8 or later you can use the built-in command 'mklink', for earlier versions of Windows use the SysInternals junction.exe tool - available here.
Maybe make the website route folder a nested application in IIS?

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