I need to develop a web site with a long long list of requirements.
One of those is allowing the site admin to add new languages to the site (that's something easy I would say, resources and voila), but with that language I need to "culturalize" the site, this is, changing the currency, changing the date format, changing the decimal separator (comma in Argentina, dots in US), and stuff like that.
So, my question is: Are there any easy way to do this job? What can you recommend me to do it?
If the solution is using resource files, and you have any example, that'd be great.
I'm trying to avoid jQuery because the tool that does the required thing is more like a plugin rather than a "script", and also isn't very trustworth or reliable, I think.
Take a look at ASP.NET Infrastructure for ASP.NET MVC3, the Globalization video. This is a great video that goes over the basics of everything you will need.
Thread.CurrentCulture gets or sets the current culture.
Thread.CurrentUICulture handles resources for each language.
There is also a <globalization> section in the Web.Config.
Hopefully this will get you on the rite track.
Related
I'm just getting started using Resharper with VS-2008, and one of the 'errors' it gave me was to localize a Label's text in the code-behind. I've worked with Localization before to Localize a website from english into french, but I don't understand what the benefit is to localizing beside that usage.
If it's an internal application that you're not going to be distributing, there's not much of a benefit to it. It may be handy to collect all your strings in one central location for easy maintenance later, but only you know whether that's worth the effort on your specific project.
That's a bit like asking what the benefit of addition is beyond adding two numbers together.
Localization is generally about presenting the most relevant user experience to each user with minimal code changes - giving each user a "skin" using their language and regional settings (e.g. for things like formatting numbers appropriately).
Granted very many web sites aren't localized at all, but R# is prompting you do give your users the best possible experience :)
I'm currently working on a high-traffic online search site.
They have various changes they want to implement over time, and they've indicated that ultimately they want the site re-done in ASP.NET MVC.
Currently the site is an ASP.NET WebForms project; however true ASP.NET controls are rarely used. Instead there are lots of server-side tags - i.e. <% ... %>. The code in these tags will usually be a call to a static method in a static class or a fragment of C# code that generates HTML.
Many of the static methods generate HTML by appending text to a string-builder and returning it as a string.
I understand the concept of a 'Helper' method, but I don't like the idea of the HTML being rendered by concatenating it to a string variable. I think they'd be better off using 'Partials'.
The thing that concerns me is that it's a pretty complex site, and I'm not sure if a complete rebuild of the site in ASP.NET MVC is a good idea.
In spite of the bad structure, it's not really that hard to add the new features that are being requested. (Perhaps because I've had past experience working with difficult code).
However I think there's a risk that at some time in the future, a requirement will come along that will be very difficult to implement unless we do a complete clean-up of the code-base.
I want to put this question out there and see if anyone's faced a similar issue, and how you dealt with it.
Also what are your thoughts on doing the re-build as a 20%-time side-project? Are there any downsides to doing it this way?
Wow, this is some project.
Personally I think any site written in ASP.Net will need to be totally re-done as far as the UI is concerned. MVC does it a whole lot differently.
Your business logic on the other hand should be ok though me thinks so long as you have seperation of concerns and it's not bound to the UI.
Data access should be ok and probably needs minimal touching. But that again depends on how tightly bound your web site is.
I think the best approach is to spend some time looking at how MVC does business and do a critical analysis of what it would take to convert and then begin converting all the layers above the UI in preperation.
Get your foundation in place and maybe even, if possible, use the MVC framework already. Again, only if you can and only if viable.
Doing this as a side project would work I think because you can take some of your libraries and begin converting them in preperation for the mvc conversion.
But be mindful that once you have converted a project/layer that you (do) implement it else it runs the risk of being forgotten or changes get made to the other layer that then need to be coded into the new etc. You know the traps.
As for the UI, that's going to be the big one especially if you use a lot of asp controls. You maight want to spend a lot of time evaluating the UI and come up with a list of controls that you either need to replace or write. Then you can begin to see a pattern and get some consistency going.
If you have a lot of code in your code behind, you may want to begin moving this to another layer as this will help later on when you create controllers etc. They can then instantiate your new layer and all should be good.
That's all I can think of from the top of my head. I'll edit or comment as I think of things.
Hope this helps.
If I have that project and I was asked to redo it from scratch, I will not use MVC to render the UI, I will use Web API/OData to host all the backend, and will use any good Front End to draw the UI, Angular will be a very good option.
Having it as a side project is good only if the pace of changes and new features in the old project is less than the progrress done in the new project, you don't want to end up with doing duplicate effort and at some point you will have to code freeze the old one.
Also, you have to consider any data migration if you will have to change the data storage option.
I have a question about localization
how can i do localization lets say that i have a dropdown list
that holds the available languages: English,french and arabic
and I have a label which get it says "good morning",so i want to change the lang. according to selected lang. in drop down list so when the user chooses french label will say "bonjour" and when the user slect arabic the label will hold "صباح الخير" AND MOVE IT FROM THE LEFT OF THE PAGE TO THE RIGHT BECAUSE ARABIC IS WRITTEN FROM RIGHT TO LEFT ,,
ANY HELP WILL BE HIGHLY APPERCAITED
THNX IN ADVACE
In short, localization in ASP.NET is fully supported using resource files, e.g. files containing strings, images and other resources for each user interface language. They're named after the culture, for example MyResources.en-US.resx or MyCulture.fr-FR.resx.
The only thing that is a bit tricky is handling LTR and RTL languages and, as far as I know, must be done "manually", via code, or via CSS.
You might want to check some documentation on MSDN.
Have you ever saw the Localization video tutorials from ASP.NET website?
How Do I: Create a Multi-Lingual Site with Localization?
and
How Do I: Localize an ASP.NET AJAX Application?
They are great to get you started...
you can create an http module that is going to read the html from the output stream and translate it,use RegEx and make sure not to translate html tags and JavaScript
there is also the asp.net standard (built-in) way, with resource files, just right click your project and click add items resource file, you must create a resource file for each language like for example: MUI.resx (that's the neutral one), MUI.fr.resx, MUI.es.resx, and you are going to use them in the web pages like this: MUI.keyword , that's if you are going to have one resx per language for all pages, you could also have one resx per language per webform.
And the current language is in the System.Threading.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture
google it a little bit you will find more, at least now you know what to look for
I’m new to .net, though I’ve been writing in classic asp for years. I know it’s time to make the change, but I can’t stand how bloated the HTML becomes.
For example, a simple menu using a web.sitemap and adds over 100 lines of JavaScript and HTML. A simple form with server-side validation adds in masses of ugly JavaScript. And a basic table of data using GridView adds in a ViewState that makes my eyes water.
Call me a purest, though I don’t like sending data to the browser unless it’s needed. And I don’t need a form-riddled menu when a simple unordered list of links will suffice.
So, set in my ways, am I destined to forgo the benefits of the Framework entirely by insisting on writing my own, cleaner code for everything? Or am I missing the point?
As a brief aside I’m a big fan of Campaign Monitor, a newsletter distribution company. They’ve written an elegant and comprehensive user-interface in .net without a single ViewState or bizarre .net-mangeled ID reference. Even the Sign Up form on their website (/signup.aspx) is as clean as a whistle. What’s their secret?
I hope I not the only one. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Try ASP.NET MVC or one of the other MVC web frameworks for .NET
If your GridView doesn't need it, then turn ViewState off for it.
Also, please edit your question to say what version of .NET you're using. Some of this gets better, and some does not. You might also want to try VS2010 beta 1, and complain about anything it doesn't fix.
Another idea would be to go on treating ASP.NET like it's classic ASP. Do it exactly the way you're used to, but do it with the idea in mind that there's about 10 years of development work that's gone into solving some of the problems of classic ASP. Once you actually hit one of those problems, find out if ASP.NET has solved it, and how.
For instance, I have a hard time believing you enjoy writing FOR loops to generate table rows. If you get tired of that, learn to use a Repeater control, or a DataList control, or even the old DataGrid control. If you turn ViewState off on those, I think you may find the generated HTML to be acceptable, and you'll find it a lot easier to generate tables and other structures that repeat based on repeating data.
You can opt-out of much of that bloat by not using all the out-of-the-box controls that come with it but I prefer the MVC route that activa suggested
Here is my list:
Keep the use of asp controls to minimum
Turn off Viewstate when it's not need
If you don't want the JavaScript associated with Client Side Validation (with ASP.NET Validation) set the EnableClientScript to False
Use asp:literal instead of asp:Label
Yeah it seems to be that everyone is bashing webforms at the minute for the reasons you have outlined above. HTML heavy Controls, ViewState, no control over ClientIDs all seem to cause an issue with people.
However let is be said that you can use asp.net (webforms) and produce some decent applications.
Control of html is yours through httpModules and httpHandlers and some of the issues mentioned above are fixed in asp.net 4.0
I just listened to a great podcast comparing MVC and webforms. Its in the area you are asking about. Also check out this blogpost by a dotNetNuke regarding the good asp.net code and why people should take a breath before converting everything to mvc.
Having said that I've tried Asp.net MVC and it is awesome. I'd probably look at dotNetNukes code to as its a mature asp.net product.
Also, when you do want to use these newfangled server controls, check out the css friendly control adapters. They clean up much of the bloat.
For client IDs the key thing to remember is to let the framework handle them. If you need to get an element on the client side, remember to emit the control's ClientID property into your script.
I've been using a template system and am very happy with it. Basically write an http handler for .html files and put tokens in the html files that regex could find in one sweep and inject any stuff. (google template c# for more info).
I tried some of the supposedly cool new features of ASP.NET for a little while. I also didn't like most of them. I felt constrained to work within the limitations of the common paradigms Microsoft had dreamed, even though I new how easy it would be to produce the HTML and JavaScript myself to do specifically what I wanted to do without having to learn how to jump through the hoops of so many new Microsoft-specific idiosyncrasies.
Anyway, I stopped using the parts of ASP.NET I didn't like on new code I've been writing lately. When I first started using ASP.NET, nothing in the MSDN documentation jumped out at me about how to avoid such complications, so I posted a couple "Hello, World" at http://www.agalltyr.com/rawaspdotnet.html to help spread the heretical word. I couldn't care less if it's the latest cool technology or the recommended technique. It's a reliable and reasonably efficient tool I can use to do my work.
Oh, and I'm not in the mood to learn ASP.NET MVC either. That's just more idiosyncrasies. Give me a language (C#) and a framework (.NET), and I'll design my own abstraction, thank you.
This is related to my previous question regarding serving static html files but that doesn't seem to be a good solution,
I want to make a fully customizable ASP.NET MVC application as a hosted service. See allowing the user to customize the look/feel of their own page but it is still dynamic, meaning the data is hosted in the central database.
I looked at the "theme" or "skin" in ASP.NET but I don't think it is customizable enough. It seems only the developer can add new themes. I want to have something like the theme editor in WordPress so you can just change the look in anyway you want from a web-based interface.
I wonder how the theme files will be stored for the popular blogging platform? Are they stored in database or a file in filesystem? I prefer to store it in database, because if it is in filesystem it will have scalability problem. Each user will be tired to a particular web server and I have to determine how much disk space for each webserver.
I thought of doing something like the old MovableType, to generate static HTML when you add new post. This solution is problematic as well, because the flexibility depends on the complexity of the template engine.
Ideas? Suggestions?
Thanks!
"Fully customizable" is the most elusive of the white whales ;-)
I see your question is old, but none the less;
first I'd recommend defining some very clear,
and cohesive rules governing just what the "bottom-line" is,
or an inheritable template of sorts.
You get a pretty good impression of what might be useful during developing, I'd guess.
Next; just what and how is the customizing supposed to be presented and achieved?
The inherit ASP.NET custom custard, Web Parts, need quite some cajoling to behave in MVC views :
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1106629/using-webparts-in-an-mvc-application
If you're leaning more towards customizable appearance (theme's n' skin's),
how about having a CSS file for each user, saves like a charm as VARCHAR(MAX), and can easily be inserted
in e.g. your Master Page's head.
The theme editor in WordPress simply allows you to edit Theme PHP files...
You can do it exactly like in wordpress but instead of editing PHP files your theme is composed of a set of aspx\ascx files without code-behinds...