Is it possible to configure ASP.NET project server properties per user? - asp.net

Is it possible to setup configurations under ASP.NET project properties > Web > Servers for each user that downloads the source code?

Short answer: No.
Now the explanation:
These settings are stored in the project file.
Unless you exclude your project file (*.csproj for C# projects) from control versionning, these settings will be shared with all the team.
Before doing so, please note that this is not a solution, because a lot of information is stored in the project files, like files in the project for example.
The best option would be for other users to manually merge project files when there are modifications and commit/check-in the project file only when necessary.

Related

Where should I place resources.resx in a ASP.NET web application?

I'm a newbie with ASP.NET web applications. When I create an ASP.NET web app project, there's a file called resources.resx in the folder My Project. Working in my computer I can access this file and its content without any problem. But when I deploy the application I can't access this file. I've tried copying the file seperately, and the folder (My Project) seperately, with the file in it, but no luck. Is there a way to achieve this?
PS: I've read something about implicit localization and explicit localization but I'd like to know if it can be done this way.
It's embedded into your DLL when you build (compile). So you can't change it when it's deployed.
If you want to see it in your DLL, you'll have to use a tool like Reflector, dotPeek, etc.
You can read more on resources here, starting from the 'Compiling Resources into Assemblies' title (as you know how to use them by now).
Well my suggestion is to use global and local resources.
In production you'll have resx file stored in:
App_GlobalResources: available in all application
App_LocalResources: one for each folder you want resources.
They are XML files visibile and editable.
I use it to allow me to modify string localization resources without recompiling and deploying.
And you can also give a web interface to the end user to allow him to self translate and localize strings at runtime.

What ASP.NET MVC project files should be kept in a repository?

background:Me and my coworkers are working on asp.net mvc project ... we have a computer that works as a server which is where the project will be stored on... each of us has a copy of the project and we got tortoise cvs set up.
questions:
when you want to commit something, what files exactly do you commit?.. asp.net reports many dll files, csproj files, cs and sln files that appear to be different from the server's.
Maybe my question is not the right one I should ask so I would appreciate some insight on whats the best approach for working in groups.
The basic csproj file should be committed whenever you add or remove things from the project, to ensure that the project has all the correct files. The solution (sln) is a good one to commit, for the same reason, although I've also seen it done without. You'd also want to commit any cs files, naturally, as they're the main focus of things.
DLL files should only be committed if they're outside references--internal dlls to your project can be ignored, as they'll be built by each computer in turn. You also want to avoid .user files as unnecessary. Ignore the 'bin' and 'obj' folders for each directory, when it comes to commits as well.
You really shouldn't check in anything that the project can generate itself. So no need to check in your bin or obj folders or anything like that, you also want to ignore any user preferences files.
This includes dlls, unless they are third party dlls, then you want to check them in to ensure everyone is working against the same version and this way you don't have to keep changing reference paths.
I don't work in asp.net, so I will respond generically.
We have a subversion code repository for our version system, cvs works well too. Developers retrieve all updated code from the repository, do work, make sure it's working correctly, do another get, re-compile, test, and then commit source code changes to the repository. On a regular basis you can have a tool or manually build the application from the repository, and deploy to a testing server. No compiled code should be placed in the repository.
-Jay
We use the following project structure in SVN (but this applies to CVS as well).
+ tags
+ branches
> trunk
+ build (build scripts)
+ lib (external libraries)
> src (source code)
>> Organization.App (solution name)
>> Organization.App.Core (code library)
+ Config
> Domain
> Model
> Persistence
> Queries
> Services
> Persistence
> Services
>> Organization.App.Web (mvc web app)
> Assets
+ Images
+ Scripts
+ Stylesheets
+ Controllers
+ Views
+ ViewModels
We put all our 3rd party dependencies into the lib folder. Including MVC, which can be bin deployed. See this article by Phil Haack. So when a new developer comes online all they have to do it check out the trunk, and they should have everything they need to get going. Using a CI server is a cinch because all of the projects dependencies are encapsulated by the lib folder and all of the visual studio projects make reference to those dll's in that lib folder.
Does that make sense?
Never mind the core folder and the web folder. That's just how we structure our projects within the solution. But that's a whole other conversation. :)
We keep everything except the BIN/OBJ folders in SVN. We have all third party Libraries in a seperate folder that they are referenced from.
Kindness,
Dan
If you are using a database change management tool, such as Tarantino, then you will also want to check in SQL change scripts and/or populate scripts. We have a folder in our 'Core' solution where we keep these, ie 'Core/Database/Updates'. We use SQL Compare to find changes in our database then we check in those SQL change scripts so that other developers can just run them locally. We have a nant task setup to call on Tarantino to sync up the other build environments (Dev, QA) and run any new change scripts.

Best practices for storing an ASP.NET web site in Subversion?

I'm currently working on an ASP.NET project with multiple developers using Subversion for code distribution, but it's quite frankly totally messed up at the moment. The person who set up the Subversion repository have included config files specific to their computer, bin\* directories, and other such things.
I, being the guy who has to check out this repository and get it to run on my computer, am pretty frustrated by this since it's taken me a while to sort it all out to get it to compile at all. Now I'm thinking about writing a document for Subversion guidelines to send to the technical leader at my company so that we can get the process standardized and avoid these kinds of problems.
What I'm looking for is input on the guidelines. Here's the start for them, and hopefully we can make something good out of it:
The file structure should be set up to have third-party libraries checked in outside the build output directories (since they won't be included in the repository.) The name of this directory should be "Libraries".
No machine-specific files should be included in Subversion. Therefore, only a template of Web.config is checked in, which is customized by the developers to suit their machine. This behavior is included in Visual Studio 2010 by default and the individual configuration files (Web.Local.config) automatically have the template (Web.config) applied. The local configuration file still shouldn't be included in Subversion though, so long as it applies for a specific machine.
Solution and project files must not contain any absolute paths.
An ignore list should be set up. Start with:
'
*.user
obj
'
Example file structure for an ASP.NET 2.0 web site with a class library specific to the web site and a third-party library:
'
/trunk/
Libraries/
ThirdParty.dll
MyClassLibrary/
bin/ [Ignore]
obj/ [Ignore]
Properties/
AssemblyInfo.cs
SomeClass.cs
MyClassLibrary.csproj
- Holds references to third-party libraries. For example:
../Libraries/ThirdParty.dll
MyWebApplication/
bin/
ThirdParty.dll [Ignore; copied by build process]
ThirdParty.dll.refresh
- Contains "../Libraries/ThirdParty.dll"
Default.aspx
Default.aspx.cs
Web.config [Ignore]
Web.config.template
MySolution.sln
- Holds list of projects.
- Has reference information for projects.
'
An alternative to using Web.config.template would be to include a Local.config file from Web.config, but this might be less flexible.
When using a Web Application project rather than a Web Site project, the references will be stored in the project file instead of in .refresh files, so the bin/ folder will be ignored.
Can someone see errors in the above suggestions? Is something missing? Does anyone have suggestions for the ignore list? I just started with a couple of entries for now.
I think that you are a good step on the way. But why not put an ignore on the entire bin folder in /MyWebApplication, instead of the files? You wouldn't add your build output to subversion would you? I would definately consider that a bad practice.
Also, if possible, you could add the web.config file to subversion, but in the element reference a new file with appSettings: for example
<appSettings file="local.config">
Then have the local.config file be ignored by svn. That is how I always operate.
But of course that only works if every configurable parameter is in the appSettings (one of the reasons why I dislike the provider model, because all the providers need to get connection strings from a connectionString element, and you cannot reconfigure them to take a connection string from appSettings)
Edit: troethom enlightened me and pointed out, that you can also override the connectionString configuration settings in a separate file
<connectionStrings configSource="ConnectionStrings.config"/>.
So the thing that I would do is place the actual web.config file under subversion control, but let those other files that override the settings locally be ignored by svn.
You should add the .refresh files; not the real DLLs.
The Visual Studio project system sends a list of files that should be added to source control to SCC Providers. AnkhSVN is a Subversion SCC provider that uses this information to suggest adding these files (and not the other files).
VisualSVN and other Subversion clients that only look at file extensions don't get this information from ASP.Net.
(Note: if you remove the .refresh file, Visual Studio will add the DLL to the list of files that should be committed)

ASP.NET: Edit App_GlobalResources with precompiled web

Is there any options to editing the resources in the App_GlobalResources folder? Once compiled, the directory is not included as part of the precompiled folder.
I read online that the App_GlobalResources Resources are compiled into a DLL for easy access. However, I want the administrator to be able to update the content of these files. Is the only way to convert these GlobalResources .RESX into LocalResources?
I don't know of any way to edit the files "in place" once they're compiled - but why not just make your changes, precompile the web again, and then just deploying the App_GlobalResources.compiled and App_GlobalResources.dll separately to your website? That should update the global resource DLL and should achieve what you're looking for, I think.
Marc
You can create a custom small resource editor application, this will be separate from your main application.
The GlobalResource Editor application will open a form which shows Keys in the first column and values in another column.
You can compile this application and copy and paste the app_globalresource file to your main application.
This way you can also ask your customer to use this application and teach him to copy and paste the resource file after compilation.

Excluding a folder from source control in an ASP.NET website?

Right now I'm working with an ASP.NET website that automatically generates images and stores them in a temporary folder. When working on my local system these go going into a temporary folder that gets picked up by Visual Source Safe which then wants to check them in. As such, I am wondering if there is a way to just exclude that particular folder from source control?
I've done a bit of reading and found that there are ways to do this for individual files, but I haven't found anything yet about an entire folder.
I think you've found one of the main reasons MS went back to projects in VS2008 and in MVC.
It's been a long time since I've used VSS (mainly because it's really out of date now), but most source providers let you exclude files and folders as a setting of the provider, rather than the project under control.
If you can switch to a Web Project rather than a WebSite then do so, otherwise I'd look at updating your source control provider, as this sort of exclusion is easy with Vault, CSV, SVN, Git, VSTS and so on (to name but a few).
Are you using ASP.NET Website or ASP.NET Web Project? The difference is significant enough to solve or promote this problem.
Websites, love to scan the file system and auto checkin.
Projects, checkin only what you tell them to.
Also Visual Source Safe is pretty out dated, most recent source control systems allow you to do what you are asking. SVN and TFS 2008 SP1 do from my experience.
You can also try to right click and pick "Exclude" on the folder, but in the case of a Website I believe this renames the folder.
I'm not sure if this is an option for you, but if you exclude your temporary folder from VSS (delete the folder inside VSS using the VSS UI), the files that go into it should not get "picked up" again.
If you perform operations on a parent project of the temporary folder, you may try cloaking the folder.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x2398bf5(VS.80).aspx
I would suggest emptying/deleting your folder from your website. Have your website on startup create/verify the folder, and on shutdown to clean it up and remove anything in it. This can be DEBUG code only (wrap in #if DEBUG) if so needed. Also add a build script to your project that does this every time it is built also.
Could you just make your application write to a temporary folder that is outside of your website?
e.g. in C:\tempfiles
VSS shouldn't be able to pick it up then.

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