I have an asp.net 4.0 webforms website with a CSS stylesheet which I've embedded into a separate assembly.
If I load the css using ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl it loads, but does it with that /WebResource.axd?whateverlongstringofstuff
I was hoping that I could use a Virtual Path provider so that i can simply reference it by linking to say ~/Custom/my.css
where ~/Custom/* would go through the VPP and serve it from the embedded resource.
the reason I was doing this is I want users to be able to easily override my css by adding the actual css file in that location so it serves that one instead.
However, no matter what I try, I get a 404 on that resource url, even though in my custom ResourceResolver, the fileExists resolves to true (because it does find it in the resources assembly).
So I suspect this is because IIS is configured to serve static files (css, jpg, png, etc) directly, bypassing anything I could add to the pipeline, and the only way around this would be to have my users change their web.config or IIS settings.
Is this true? because if it is I'll abandon this and go back to the WebResource.axd, but it would really be nice if this could be done
We have legacy code to maintain and, to solve a specific customer customization problem, we want to route calls to some files to other files. That is, when the app calls a particular ASPX, it will end up hitting another ASPX.
If you call:
www.foo.com/admin/admin.aspx
It will actually hit:
www.foo.com/customizations/customer1/admin/admin.aspx
This is not a good design but this is legacy code. We just want to solve this.
We are using the System.Web.Routing framework to solve it. This works fine when you set RouteExistingFiles to true, except for static files (CSS, JavaScript and Images).
When I first tried it, it retrieved this error:
There is no build provider register for the extension '.css'.
So I did register a build provider in the web.config file for the .css extension. I used this build provider: PageBuilderProvider because someone recommended it in the internet.
It works! But the CSS is being served with text\html content type.
How do I achieve this?
TL;DR: I want to use routes in ASP.NET Web Forms to make a call for a specific CSS file to actually retrieve another one. A customer needs this for customization.
Try coding a HttpHandler. I had to do something similar but for PDF files, I coded a custom HttpHandler in the end - works very well. You can even set the content type in the HttpHandler code and have a pattern matched path the handler will be used for in the web.config. You can also configure it in web.config not to execute if the path does not point to an existing file e.g. so a 404 is returned without having to code that in the handler itself. I can't post my code (VB.NET) ATM because I'm using a tablet but google search for tutorials. You will also probably need to use the TransmitFile function to actually write out the css file. Is it a web forms project or web site? If its a web site there is a special way of registering the HttpHandler in the web.config.
I seen an ASP.NET application, in the URL is saying:
http://xxxxxxxxx/FILENAME.html?xxxx=xxx
How come it is html file? But not aspx file? How did they do it?
I heard from my manager that's an ASP.NET project he outsourced.
Sometime I seen people with their web page is ended in .html too, but obviously that is generated dynamically...
Files ending with .html are optional. These are static HTML-pages without any code-behind and can be included as part of any web application. They are not parsed and compiled by the server but rather just sent as good old predefined HTML.
You can also configure the web server so that it routes requests with different endings through the ASP.net rendering engine. This way you can keep the widely recognized ending .html and still have dynamic page generation.
The file extension is not necessarily tied to the execution engine. You can make ASP.NET process .aspx, .html, .htm, .bob, .foobar, .css, etc.
There are multiple of ways to do this:
In IIS manager, set the file extension mapping for .html to point to ASP.NET. If you're using MVC, you can handle this via routing.
Use a rewrite engine to map anything with a .htm* extension to .aspx
There are probably other ways, but these are the most direct.
Also, the .html extension doesn't mean that the file was dynamically generated.
You can use URL rewriting. There are a lot of different rewriters most popular being the URL rewrite module ( http://www.iis.net/download/urlrewrite ) and the built in (in ASP.NET 4.0) Routing Engine ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc668201.aspx ).
The URL Rewrite module is external to your application and it translates incoming URLs to regular .aspx URLs. You are responsible for generating the links with .html. It is good if you are adding it to an existing application.
The built in routing can generate urls based on routes and is configured in Global.asax (usually) with code.
Right click on the project.
Add new...
pick the HTML file type.
Some people prefer to use a different extension (or even none at all) in order to hide the technology used to develop the site.
Bear in mind that you would have to properly configure IIS to let the .net engine handle the .html file types.
Project1.csproj is the website project and StaticContent.csproj is the static content project to hold all .css, .js and image files. I am keeping it separate so that designers can work without touching the main project file and may be use cdn in future. But the problem is how do my .ascx and .aspx pages will refer to these css and js files as that when I run in localhost, it still picks up.
I think the best way is you create a website in IIS for the Static project, and reference it trough something like static.myproject.com (having the appropiate setup) on the other one.
You can still use Webdevserver on Project1.
Is most like what you will have when deploy, and you can put the URL on web.config for easy change
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.