asp.net resource customization - asp.net

Our web site( ASP.NET 4.0 ) makes heavy use of meta:ResourceKey in each control throughout for pretty much anything you can see on a page and is customized from client to client. But the problem is that resource sometimes needs to be customized from client to client. For example if there is this string in a resource file Label1ResourceText.Text = 'Welcome to Customer1 site' then it needs to be changed to Label1ResourceText.Text = 'Welcome to Customer2 site' both in English and localized resource versions of the app when we install Customer2 version. I am wondering if it can be done with minimal customization work between each customer either programmatically or declaratively but without having to manually edit or produce different resource files for each customer.
Thanks for the suggestions.

Whether you use a single file or multiple files, your website will still have to determine which file to use or which key to use if you go with a single file approach.
Other than that, you will have to use two separate files.
An alternative would be to add a single resource file, say UIStrings.resx, to the resources folder. You could then store the following string in the resource file
WeclomeMessage = "Welcome to {0} site"
Then you can render the string using
Label1.Text = String.Format(Resources.UIStrings.WelcomeMessage, CustomerName);
in the code behind.
As an alternative to the code behind approach is to use
<asp:Label Text="<%= String.Format(Resources.UIStrings.WelcomeMessage, CustomerName)%>" />
This link has some good information on how to utilize resource files.

Look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms227982(v=vs.100).aspx. You can use different resx files and call them based on your business logic programmatically.

Related

ASP.NET MVC - Non-Embedded Resource FIle

I currently have a local resource file in an ASP.NET MVC project. The goal of this file is to let a non-programmer edit the text on the webpage. The problem is that the resource file is an embedded resource and compiled on ASP.NET MVC Deployment. This means they would have visual studio to change site copy. This is non-optimal :)
Is there a way to make use of resource files in ASP.NET MVC that would result in a .resx file on the server for an admin-type person to be able to edit?
The other option is to put this in a database and have some front end to edit it, but I would really like to avoid this option as its overly complex for just a few text fields on a small site.
Thanks!
Once way of doing so, is to make sure the resources aren't compiled.
When you add a resource file (e.g. TextResource.resx) you can access the resources in a type safe manner.
For example:
ViewBag.Message = Resources.TextResource.MyMessage;
After you add a resource file (*.resx), select it in the solution explorer and view its properties. Clear the "Custom Tool" property. By default it contains the value "GlobalResourceProxyGenerator". Just delete this value.
This has a downside, however as you can no longer access the resources in a type-safe manner. You'll have to load them using the GetGlobalResourceObject and GetLocalResourceObject methods of the current HttpContext.
For example:
ViewBag.Message = this.HttpContext.GetGlobalResourceObject("TextResource",
"Hello", CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture);
This way you'll be able to manually alter the resource files (*.resx). You could then opt to build an application which can read and modify the contents of the resource files, which are just XML files.
For example:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/Editing_a_ResourceFile.aspx

ASP.NET Virtual Directory For Common Markup

I have a few applications that need to share a common set of markup.
Scenario: I might have www.site1.com, www.site2.com, and www.site3.com. On all sites, /care/contact-us.aspx and /care/faqs.aspx will be exactly the same, but every other page will be totally different.
Issue: I'm attempting to not duplicate the .aspx files for each of these sites and would like to have a /care virtual directory that would include contact-us.aspx and faqs.aspx that each of these sites would use. I have seen this post from Scott Gu, but I'm looking for any other solutions/ideas.
Question 1: What would be the best way to set this up to share the /care directory?
Question 2: Any ideas about also sharing the code behind.
Background, if you care: In a legacy application (asp classic/vbscript), we have the ability to use a /common virtual directory for sites to share common markup and code (since they're all mixed together in .asp files).
Thanks in advance to any help or ideas!
Simply setup a virtual directory in IIS for each of the apps that points to the same physical directory.
Here's a good reference:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324785
This is actually pretty hard, and i'd recommend you either bite the bullet and go with the scott gu answer or use the solution we chose, which was to use the svn:externals property within subversion to import a directory from a "shared" repository. Subversion manual reference. If you use a different version control system i would guess it would have something similar but you're on your own in that case.
I use a virtual directory in order to share HTML and Image files between sites. To share ASPX files, things are a bit different - and harder.
When we share HTML files, we do not just link to that file because it would screw up the menu (different sites have different menus - we just want the content of the HTML files). So I created a page (e.g. "ShowContent.aspx") that opens up the HTML file, reads the contents as a string and assigns the string to an ASP label control. This may work for you as-is if you don't generate the content dynamically in your shared ASPX files.
Even if you do, hope is not lost. First, create a project that incorporates JUST the common ASPX files, build it and place the project files in a known location (http://shared.yoururl.com). Now, instead of pulling the contents by accessing a file, simply read the contents off using a WebRequest object:
WebRequest wrContent = WebRequest.Create("http://shared.yoururl.com/CommonInformation.aspx");
Stream objStream = wrContent.GetResponse().GetResponseStream();
StreamReader objStreamReader = new StreamReader(objStream);
string pageContent = objStreamReader.ReadToEnd();
Then display the pageContent on your blank page.
If your common pages are data entry forms then I'm afraid your only hope is to place them in a common source directory that multiple projects share. You'd share the source but would publish the files with each project. This is likely to be messy though: you may make changes in one that break other projects because they now have the possibility of interdependency.

How to load specific flash while switching different lang in ASP.NET web application?

I've built a multilingual ASP.NET web app and no problem . I'm trying to put a flash header for this website so I've made couple flash in different language ( because they are different not just in language , they have tiny different because of different cultures ) .
But my problem is i don't know how to load specific flash while switching different language .
Any solution ?
If it were me, I would create a resource file for each language (which you might have done already, depending on how you have implemented internationalisation), and simply store the different SWF file name in each file.
Then when you are writing out the SWF embed code, just dynamically read the file name from the resource files and you will get the correct file name for the current culture. Something like:
<embed src="<%=Resources.text.SWFFileName%>.swf" />
I found this article quite helpful when it came to resource files.
if you have a language variable inside your ASP.NET page script, then you can just load
<embed src="flash_header_<%= language_variable %>.swf" />
something like that. Then it will load different swf. I've put down asp.net long time ago, so the code maybe wrong but the concept is there

ASP.NET File uploading-dynamic file names

I have a web page where i have an ASP.NET file upload control to upload files from client machine to Server.Now i want to do the uploading n number of times.Ex : I want to upload 100 files from my local pc to server.The 100 file names i can read from an excel file in my program.But is there any way to assign this file to the file upload control ?
No, as a security feature, FilUpload controls do not allow you to set what to download (imagine if you sign on to a website, and it is set to upload a passwords file or something).
Now there is probably another control, or a way to code around this, buut the FileUpload control will not allow it.
I would recommend using the jQuery Multifile Uploader which would take care of a UI (if you need one). And the actual uploads with Free ASP Uploads which takes care of the actual file transfer. Though it sounds like you are tkaing care of the programs programatically, so you can skip the multifule and just work with free asp upload.
You'll have to make your own Flash object or something to accomplish this, the basic HTML/ASP.Net controls won't let you do what you're looking for.
This will require creating some kind of an active or installable control. In order to get around the security hole of doing this, you're ultimately going to have to be able to execute code on the machine to select and upload the file.
And at that point, you're platform specific, so...
I would strongly suggest that instead of trying to have a web site automatically upload files for you, that you make a WinForms utility to accomplish this task and upload the files wherever you need, communicate with the web site over web services, etc.
This is a security restriction, you cant script the file selection of an upload box as it would allow hackers to write scripts to steal files off your computer.
You could use this silverlight upload utility which is my list of "things to use when I get the chance".
It has a nice UI and supports uploading many files at once. I originally tracked it down doing some research for a photography website that we were quoting for but that project fell through.
Anyway the project can be found here:
http://www.michielpost.nl/Silverlight/MultiFileUploader/
It also has full source code included so even if the control's developers abandon it you still have the choice to edit it yourself.

ASP.NET PasswordRecovery Control with Localized content

I am working on a simple portal application using the ASP.NET membership and login controls. I would like to use the PasswordRecovery control to send emails containing forgotten passwords, however my portal requires localization. I have an existing Content Management System that I am pulling the localized strings out of and I would like to link the PasswordRecovery control to that system.
But, it appears that the PasswordRecovery control will ONLY accept a .txt file for the email body...the property is PasswordRecovery1.MailDefinition.BodyFileName
I do not want to use a file on disk, I would like to use the localized content in my CMS.
Is there any way to do this? It occurred to me that I might be able to use the SendingMail event to send my OWN email through the normal System.Net namespace, but that seems sorta cludgy...
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Max
Try handling the SendingMail event of the PasswordRecovery control. In that event, set the e.Message.Body and e.Message.Subject properties to your localized text.
Found this by googling "BodyFileName localization":
http://forums.asp.net/t/1118242.aspx:
Just bind the property to a key in
your page's localresource file. The
page's local resource file is the file
located in a subdirectory called
app_localresources in your page's
directory. Just use visual studio's
"tools -> create local resource"
option in design view for it be
created for you.
In that file, create a string
key/value pair with something like
Name: myBodyFileName
Value: myDefaultBodyFile.txt
Then bind this to the BodyFileName
property of the login control with
something like
'>
Then just create the sattelite local
resource files for other cultures and
map that key/value pair in those
resources to other body text files.
By the way, if you used visual studio
to create the resource file for you,
then the binding may have been done
for you automatticaly. Just search for
a
"MyChangePasswordControlResource1.BodyFileName"
key in the resource file or something
similar.
Regards, Jorge

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