I've created a simple XAML workflow with a single InArgument with a default value of 1.234. If I then switch my machine to French(France) in Regional and Lanaguage Options and try to load the workflow into the VS design view, I get the error:
'Failed to create a 'InArgument' from the text '1.234'.'
Looking at the XAML I can see that the attribute this:Activity1.arg1="1.234", which is causing the problem. I then tried creating an equivalent XAML workflow from scratch using VS whilst still running under French settings, and the resulting XAML is different - the attribute is this:Activity1.arg1="[1.234]".
This is causing me two problems:
1) Our end users will not be able to send XAML files to other users running under different regional settings
2) The two XAML files deserialise to different object graphs - in the first case I end up with a Literal and in the second case I get a VisualBasicValue. I then need to code around the differences when I am manipulating the workflow programmatically.
Is there some simple way to avoid this by ensuring that the XAML is always written/read in a neutral culture?
You can programatically change the Thread.CurrentCulture to the invariant culture. This can be done temporarily, while the workflow is being loaded.
Related
So there are several parts to this question.
The 2 example endpoints (in simplest form):
user/{id}/profile
movie/{id}/info
I expect to create 2 controllers (UserController & MovieController).
How do I implement a view area before controller name?
Both of these are what I would consider a view. Therefore I would like to append a "view" in the url before the controller, as both controllers ONLY supply views. I later expect to also have a user controller in a different place that does NOT return views.
However, ALL my endpoints should start with /api/.
i.e. I want this:
api/view/user/{id}/profile
api/view/movie/{id}/info
But how do I register an area (/view/) while using "custom routing" (i.e.: httpConfiguration.MapHttpAttributeRoutes())? Any examples of this I couldn't find?
Where should I put versioning?
The client is an app, and will require versioning, so that we can make changes to the methods without breaking old versions of the app.
We are unsure where it would be best to place the versioning, and how the placement affects the development of new versions (if it does so at all?).
Possibilities:
1. api/v1/view/user/{id}/profile
2. api/view/v1/user/{id}/profile
3. api/view/user/{id}/profile/v1
version the whole API. This would upgrade the whole API to a new version, even if we only required a single method/endpoint to make an app-breaking change.
Are there any advantages to this that I am not seeing?
version the area. Same as above, just slightly fewer controllers affected.
version the method. Seems like the simplest, as only the single changed method is affected. But the url is very ugly.
Does anyone have an example of versioning in an MVC or Web Api structure that doesn't upgrade the whole API, but still keeps a somewhat nice structure in their URLs?
I ended up using https://github.com/Microsoft/aspnet-api-versioning as suggested by NightOwl888.
1.
Made my 2 controllers extend another controller with a const field that defined the routeprefix that they should share:
protected const string RoutePrefix = "api/view/v{version:apiVersion}";
...
[RoutePrefix(RoutePrefix + "/user")]
2.
The placement of the /v1/ doesn't matter with this Library. And allowed for either updating the controller or individuals methods, as seen fit per case basis.
I have used this to chain dynamic data drop downs in an Orbeon application using the following services:
1. /xforms-sandbox/service/zip-states
2. /xforms-sandbox/service/zip-cities?state-abbreviation={../state}
3. /xforms-sandbox/service/zip-zips?state-abbreviation={../state}&city={../city}
I have few questions:
I also want to create the same, so can you please point me the code where this services are present. How I should write the service in this case?
{../state} - How it retrieve the state value when it changed?
What is the use of state-abbreviation?
This specific test service is implemented in XPL and XSL, in zip-states.xpl. But it really just is a service that gets called with an HTTP GET by Orbeon Forms, and returns XML. BTW, you can easily test it from your browser, and it could be implemented with any technology.
Whenever the value of the control named state changes, {../state} will return a different value, so the URL for the service will change, so the Dynamic dropdown will load again that URL to retrieve potentially new data.
In this particular example, we want the "abbreviation" to be stored in the data (e.g. "CA"), and the full name (e.g. "California") to be shown in the UI. Again, in this particular examples, values come from states.xml.
I was going through Unity 2.0 to check if it has an effective use in our new application. My application is a Windows Forms application and uses a traditional bar menu (at the top), currently.
My UIs (Windows Forms) more or less support Dependency Injection pattern since they all work with a class (Presentation Model Class) supplied to them via the constructor. The form then binds to the properties of the supplied P Model class and calls methods on the P Model class to perform its duties. Pretty simple and straightforward.
How P Model reacts to the UI actions and responds to them by co-ordinating with the Domain Class (Business Logic/Model) is irrelevant here and thus not mentioned.
The object creation sequence to show up one UI from menu then goes like this -
Create Business Model instance
Create Presentation Model instance with Business Model instance passed to P Model constructor.
Create UI instance with Presentation Model instance passed to UI constructor.
My present solution:
To show an UI in the method above from my menu I would have to refer all assemblies (Business, PModel, UI) from my Menu class. Considering I have split the modules into a number of physical assemblies, that would be a dificult task to add references to about 60 different assemblies. Also the approach is not very scalable since I would certainly need to release more modules and with this approach I would have to change the source code every time I release a new module.
So primarily to avoid the reference of so many assemblies from my Menu class (assembly) I did as below -
Stored all the dependency described above in a database table (SQL Server), e.g.
ModuleShortCode | BModelAssembly | BModelFullTypeName | PModelAssembly | PModelFullTypeName | UIAssembly | UIFullTypeName
Now used a static class named "Launcher" with a method "Launch" as below -
Launcher.Launch("Discount");
Launcher.Launch("Customers");
The Launcher internally uses data from the dependency table and uses Activator.CreateInstance() to create each of the objects and uses the instance as constructor parameter to the next object being created, till the UI is built. The UI is then shown as a modal dialog. The code inside Launcher is somewhat like -
Form frm = ResolveForm("Discount");
frm.ShowDialog();`
The ResolveForm does the trick of building the chain of objects.
Can Unity help me here?
Now when I did that I did not have enough information on Unity and now that I have studied Unity I think I have been doing more or less the same thing. So I tried to replace my code with Unity.
However, as soon as I started I hit a block. If I try to resolve UI forms in my Menu as
Form customers = myUnityContainer.Resolve<Customers>();
or
Form customers = myUnityContainer.Resolve(typeof(Customers));
Then either way, I need to refer to my UI assembly from my Menu assembly since the target Type "Customers" need to be known for Unity to resolve it. So I am back to same place since I would have to refer all UI assemblies from the Menu assembly. I understand that with Unity I would have to refer fewer assemblies (only UI assemblies) but those references are needed which defeats my objectives below -
Create the chain of objects dynamically without any assembly reference from Menu assembly. This is to avoid Menu source code changing every time I release a new module. My Menu also is built dynamically from a table.
Be able to supply new modules just by supplying the new assemblies and inserting the new Dependency row in the table by a database patch.
At this stage, I have a feeling that I have to do it the way I was doing, i.e. Activator.CreateInstance() to fulfil all my objectives. I need to verify whether the community thinks the same way as me or have a better suggestion to solve the problem.
The post is really long and I sincerely thank you if you come til this point. Waiting for your valuable suggestions.
Rajarshi
As I can see from this code
Form customers = myUnityContainer.Resolve<Customers>();
all your code need to know about the customer - is that it's a Form class. So if you use xml configuration for unity you can do the following:
<type type="Form" mapTo="Customer" name="Customer">
</type>
And then you'll be able to resolve it like this:
Form customers = myUnityContainer.Resolve<Form>("Customer");
and there is no need to refference your UI assembly. Offcourse it should be presented in the bin directory or GAC. In this case if you'll develop new Assembly - all you need is to change config and put in in bin or gac.
If you want to make unity configuration from db then you'll have to add referrence to your ui, becouse you'll have to call Register("Customer").
For SharePoint, I want to have custom E-Mail body for workflow tasks. However i wan't to format email's using my custom ASCX user controls. (I can see them or modify using Visual Studio WYSIWYG). Ideally I could render that UserControl as string and it works.
I`v found a solution, but it requires HttpContext.Current != null in order to use this technique. However, as this is a Workflow and workflows get serialized between delay events, I don't have an active HttpContext object (HttpContext.Current = null). Nor I can pre-render on workflow activated event (a moment before workflow gets serialized), because all the data I need could be set afterwards.
What are the workarounds? The template is pretty simple actually - just a html table with some data, but the WYSIWYG helps me alot...
I`v decided to create a simple .htm page with placeholders like {{firstname}}, {{surname}} etc, place .htm on filessytem and then, when needed, read that file and do replacements of those fields to my desired values.
If someone goes the same way, remember to pass value with System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(myvalue), so no accidents happen.
I want to put context-sensitive, dynamic command options on my asp.net pages.
I tried coding my own command structure but it's not very good, and I'm sure there must be a framework for doing this somewhere I can re-use?
Example:
I have a detailsview for some database object, I want to code in the object class what commands are available, based on the state of the object. I then want a UI object I can place on the webform that will pass commands back to the object when user clicks them, or jump to a different link (e.g. when additional parameters are available).
e.g. form might look like this
Product Details
Name: XXXX product
Price: $1.00
Qty: 1
Commands:
> Edit
> New Stock
> Mark as obsolete
So the commands at the bottom would have very little UI code and pass actions back to the object. For example the New Stock command would jump to a new page to ask for a quantity.
I don't know of the framework, but you could create something yourself. Let's say you are using MVP pattern, and assuming that this is a CRUD application, you could tell each view what type of object it is related to, then annotate you object with operations that are available. Then Presenter could call Service to perform the operation. You could name your methods using some convention so that you can wire it up in a Service. It is a lot of work, and unless you have 100s of views it is not worth while. I am building app that is about that size, and I am in process of creating GenericMVP framework, that would make wiring a breeze.