creating a one on one chat inside an asp.net website - asp.net

i would like to create a facebook like one on one chat within an asp.net website, but i cant figure out the mechanism or how it would work.
so far i only have a database table for it designed like this:
id | user1 | user2 | datetime | message
how do i get started, thanks.

I'd consider utilising Signal R for this type of feature - see this guide on implementing a chat feature with signal r - should remove a lot of pain from the development process http://geekswithblogs.net/jeroenb/archive/2011/12/14/signalr-starter-application.aspx

take a look at this:
Simple Chat Application in ASP.NET

The most efficient method to build a chat in asp.net is to use a IHttpAsyncHandler and ajax requests.
Here is a completely working project that implements this, along with ajax.
An async request allows you to delay the response of a request till an external event occurs.
A user makes a call to this handler and waits till someone sends him a message.
Messages are delivered as soon as you send them to a user.
On receiving a message the client makes another request and waits for the next message.
This is a lot more efficient than polling the site to check if messages have arrived.
Using the async handler also ensures that no asp.net threads are wasted waiting while a user waits for messages to come.
This ensures that you chat can scale well even as the number of users of the site goes up.

Related

Set time out for a web response from client side

I am calling a webservice to send sms to clients from my ASP.NET web app. Sometimes this webservice takes too much time to return a response, and this is causing problems with the next functions called in my app. So is there any way to add time out for the response from my app? In other words: can I add a time out so whenever the response time exceeds time out, my app continue working instead of waiting for a response?
How do you make the request ... HttpWebRequest? If this is the case you have a timeout property - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.httpwebrequest.timeout(v=vs.110).aspx
In case you don't care about the response, you can go with "Fire and forget" approach. You can find more information here - Simplest way to do a fire and forget method in C#?

Asynchronous operations may only be started within an asynchronous handler or module or during certain events in the Page lifecycle

We are developing a shopping website where we make use of an external payment processor. When a user choose to pay then the amount and all other required arguments are sent to the 3rd party payment processor. Along with that, we also send a post ipn custom url. This is the url where the payment processor sends back the acknowkedgement.
I want to kickoff a bunch of time consuming operations in the background(asyncronous) when the control is sent back to this url. That way the user who is sitting on the UI of the payment processor does not sit there forever but instead gets the response back instantly. So for the background method to run I have made it async.
The problem is when I run the project the moment the control reaches to call the async method it gives me an exception of
An asynchronous operation cannot be started at this time. Asynchronous
operations may only be started within an asynchronous handler or
module or during certain events in the Page lifecycle. If this
exception occurred while executing a Page, ensure that the Page is
marked <%# Page Async="true" %>.
How do I fix this? Remember the UI is not in my control. It is the UI of the payment processor.
Any help please???
Given your constraints, the best way to achieve what you want is probably to stand up a Windows Service, or some similar independent processing mechanism, and use WCF to pass it your desired processing jobs.
You shouldn't keep this sort of thing on the ASP.NET Server, for all of the reasons that you've already mentioned, and a few others that you haven't mentioned yet.
Further Reading
Long-running ASP.NET tasks

asp.net page wait others server side / asynchrone page

I created an asp.net page for waiting ajax. I have one page creating something that takes 30 seconds. On every step I change a session value.
I have another page for ajax, returning the session value for showing the percentage of creation. But, I dont know why, my ajax page awaits the end of the creation of my first page. So I only get the 100% at the end.
Maybe it's because I use VS development server and not IIS server. If this is the problem, can I change settings of the development server for asynchrone execution?
Or is it something else?
WebForms are not ideal for asynchronous operations.
Add SignalR to your project and use a Hub to push status data back to your page to update the current state of the process you are running Asynchronously.
An example of a technique to perform this type of asynchronous notification is covered in my blog post titled "A Guide to using ASP.Net SignalR with RadNotifications"
Don't use ASP.Net session state to do that. It has an implicit reader/writer lock around it, meaning your other call is probably blocking until your process finishes. You can try storing your status in a database or the cache, but it would probably be better to redesign the interaction.

Asynchronous web service call in ASP.NET/C#

We have an application that hits a web service successfully, and the data returned updates our DB. What I'm trying to do is allow the user to continue using other parts of our web app while the web service processes their request and returns the necessary data.
Is this asynchronous processing? I've seen some console app samples on the msdn site, but considering this is a web form using a browser I'm not sure those samples apply. What if the user closes the browser window mid request? Currently we're using the Message Queue which "waits" for the web service to respond then handles the DB update, but we'd really like to get rid of that.
I'm (obviously) new to async requests and could use some help figuring this out. Does anyone have some code samples or pertinent articles I could check out?
Yes, what you're describing is async processing.
The best solution depends to some degree on the nature of the web services call and how you want to handle the results. A few tips that might help:
One approach is to send a request from the initial web request to a background thread. This works best if your users don't need to see the results of the call as soon as it completes.
Another approach is to have your server-side code make an async web services call. This is the way to go if your users do need to see the results. The advantage of an async call on the server side is that it doesn't tie up an ASP.NET worker thread waiting for results (which can seriously impair scalability)
Your server-side code can be structured either as a web page (*.aspx) or a WCF service, depending on what you want to have it return. Both forms support async.
From the client, you can use an async XMLHTTP request (Ajax). That way, you will receive a notification event when the call completes.
Another approach for long-running tasks is to write them to a persistent queue using Service Broker. This works best for things that you'd like users to be able to start and then walk away from and see the results later, with an assurance that the task will be completed.
In case it helps, I cover each of these techniques in detail in my book, along with code examples: Ultra-Fast ASP.NET.
If you're not blocking for a method return you're doing asychronous processing. Have a look at Dino Esposito's article on using AJAX for server task checking.
You can perform asynchronous web service calls using both Web Service Enhancements (WSE) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) in your C# code. WSE is discontinued, so its use is not recommended. Generically speaking, if you were to terminate program execution in the middle of an asynchronous call before the response returned, nothing bad would happen; the client would simply not process the result, but the web service would still be able to perform its processing to completion.
If your client web application is responsible for updating the DB, then without anything else in your client code, quitting in the middle of an asynchronous operation would mean that the DB was not updated. However, you could add some code to your client application that prevented the browser from quitting entirely while it is waiting for an asynchronous response while preventing new web service calls from being run after Close is called (using Javascript).
You have 2 distinct communications here: (1) from web browser to web application and (2) from web application to web service.
diagram http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/6713/diagramo.png
There is no point of making (2) asynchronous: you still would have to wait for web service to finish processing request. If you end HTTP request from browser to web application the client would have no clue what the result of request was.
It is much better to make asynchronous request from web browser to your web application. Ajax is ideal for that. In fact, that's what it was created for. Here's couple of links to get you started:
jQuery Ajax
ASP.NET AJAX

ASP.NET concurrency

I have an ASP.NET application that starts a long running operation during the Event Handler phase in the ASP.NET Page life cycle. This occurs when the end user pushes a button a bunch of queries are made to a database, a bunch of maps are generated, and then a movie is made from jpeg images of the maps. This process can take over a minute to complete.
Here's a link to the application
http://maxim.ucsd.edu/mapmaker/cbeo.aspx
I've tried using a thread from the threadpool, creating and launching my own thread and using AsyncCallback framework. The problem is that the new thread is run under a different userid. I assume the main thread is run under ASPNET, the new thread is run under AD\MAXIM$ where MAXIM is the hostname. I know this because there is an error when it tries to connect to the database.
Why is the new thread under a different userid?
If I can figure out the userid issue, what I'd like to do is check if the movie making process has finished by examining a Session variable in a Page_Load method, then add a link to the page to access the movie.
Does anyone have any good examples of using concurrency in a ASP.NET application that uses or creates threads in an EventHandler callback?
Thanks,
Matt
Did you read this?: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163725.aspx
Quoting one relevant portion from that link (you should read the whole thing):
A final point to keep in mind as you build asynchronous pages is that you should not launch asynchronous operations that borrow from the same thread pool that ASP.NET uses.
Not addressing the specific problem you asked about, but this is likely to come up soon:
At what point is this video used?
If it's displayed in the page or downloaded by the user, what does the generated html that the browser uses to get the video look like? The browser has to call that video somewhere using a separate http request, and you might do better by creating a separate http handler (*.ashx file) to handle that request, and just writing the url for that handler in your page.
If it's for storage or view elsewhere you should consider just saving the information needed to create the video at this point and deferring the actual work until the video is finally requested.
The problem is that the new thread is run under a different userid. I assume the main thread is run under ASPNET, the new thread is run under AD\MAXIM$ where MAXIM is the hostname.
ASPNET is a local account, when the request travels over a network it will use the computer's credentials (AD\MAXIM$).
What may be happening, is that you're running under impersonation in the request - and without in the ThreadPool. If that's the case, you might be able to store the current WindowsIdentity for the request, and then impersonate that identity in the ThreadPool.
Or, just let the ThreadPool hit the DB with Sql Authentication (username and password).

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