In a website, I see some developers put code into app_code, and sometimes appcode (due to some bug), other files into DataModel, and other files into miscellaneous folders.
Is there a standard approach to organizing code within an application?
How is it different between an ASP.NET, MVC, Silverlight, Console, Database, and WCF application? The reason I mention WCF is because many people seem to have a shared types library that is linked between the server and client code.
Where can I learn these common practices without having to try, fail, and try again. I'd rather just learn it once from the experts.
the most standard well organized is MVC framework. For anything else, mostly i organize folders as namespace.
eg companyName.projectName.folderName
myCompany.StackOverFlow.Extension
myCompany.StackOverFlow.OpenID
There is no set in stone 'best practice' standard for organizing namespaces. My personal approach to keeping projects organized is to limit the content of any directory/namespace to about 20 items. This means I can fit the full contents of a folder into my screen, and also see every other item surrounding it (assuming other folders are collapsed).
On the other hand, lots of folders without much content can make navigation difficult as well.
Another thing you should do is to separate your solution into projects based on dependencies. For example if you are using m-v-vm, you should have a project for each of Model, View, and ViewModel.
Files placed in AppCode should only be files directly relevant to the presentation modules. Other files (ie ViewModel, Model, Controller etc depending on the framework you're using) would be preferably placed in separate projects.
Take a look at the "WCF the Manual Way…the Right Way" http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=0809101
Related
I have an ASP.NET MVC project that is deployed via Visual Studio's Web Deployment - all works fine so far.
I now need to deploy another version of the same project (e.g. for a different customer) - with the same code base/functionality, but with a different layout, i.e. other CSS and images (maybe even with different views/Razor code). Ideally, the content from the other configuration would not be published at all.
I know I can use different connection strings for the persistence layer - but is there a way to configure also configure other content elements?
I'd like to avoid having two versions (or later even more) that required branching/merging - but rather like to simply deploy the latest version with the different "themes"...
I have a MVC project with 4 class libraries. And i deployed it into 3 other domains.
I copied only MVC project without controllers or code classes for each client, and added them into my solution. I use them only for visual changes or themes. Not for server side functionality. So the copied projects' assemblies shouldn't be deployed. Only the UI files should be deployed. Assemblies are deployed from the original MVC project's output folder.
I build solution and publish dll's into 3 domain, and publish only each client's UI files into it's server.
This enables me to develop server-side functionality in only one MVC project. Separate UI files from server side functionality.
Hope this helps.
are you using MVC then?
What you can do is to override the default razor engine and create your own. What the razor engine does is mainly to map your requests to views in particular folders, you can tell the razor engine when to map those requests to views in one folder or another.
MVC4 Razor Custom View Locator
A full fledged explaination is here :
http://nickberardi.com/creating-your-first-mvc-viewengine/
That is for views, if you just want the CSS or JS to be different, you just have to map your requests to a razor bundle and then vary what the content of the bundle is depending on a variable, or the pressence of a configuration file, or by filling a variable with a value from the database.
As you can see here bundling is very easy :
http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/mvc-4/bundling-and-minification
Say your html points to : /assets/mycssbundle.css , but what that file would actually contain can be altered by where you tell to the bundling function that the files are located.
This seems like a design question. If you foresee possible changes like this in the future, and you already swap content via DB, then you should consider loading css file from database. There're of course many other ways to do this but simple and efficient is preferable.
This would mean structuring your html properly to ensure all layout is properly handled via CSS and can be achieved via ViewData or ViewBag. See case example.
Edit:
Not css data but the relevant css file.
You have two options:
A) Develop a custom view engine that switches between different page sets depending on the configuration. This will allow you to switch between the page sets just by changing the web.config settings, which fits well with the visual studio's built in deployment model (different web.config transformations kick-in for different deployment environments). One implementation that comes to mind - switch between view engines for different deployment environments (in different web.config transformations).
Unlike the other suggestion to load pages from the DB, I would recommend loading them from folder or physical location (e.g. different view engines targeting different sub-folders of the project). DB approach is not developer friendly when it comes to developing and fixing pages and their markups that are in the DB.
B) Develop all page sets (all variations) under the same project and then write custom deployment scripts which deploy particular page sets depending on the deployment environment. Drawback of this approach is that it's hard to notice issues like page sets intersecting or links crossing the page set boundaries.
While plan B sounds a little bit simpler development-wise, it can become a nightmare maintenance- and deployment-wise.
So, I recommend plan A.
Your Question is too broad.
However we have also a similar use case. We put all the theme related stuff (css, images, etc) as an embedded ressource in a separate assembly. We have Customer1.Theme.dll and Customer2.Theme.dll etc.
The App loads dynamically the Theme.dll and references the ressrouces from there.
Among other solutions,
assuming that you are using asp.net mvc.
and assuming that you have content1 and content2 folder available in the same repository or making available in same repository is not a concern.
and assuming your are bundling your contents.
and assuming your images are referenced only using css.
You can have a app config key which will tell you whether you want content1 or content2.
something like,
<add key="sitecontent" value="content1"/>
Now in your Application start in global asax, read the app config key and depending on the value, call the
BundleConfig.RegisterContent1Bundles(BundleTable.Bundles);
BundleConfig.RegisterContent2Bundles(BundleTable.Bundles);
I think this is a design issue. As you can see below you can organize your .net application in different layers:
Source: Microsoft
There are some key principles (Separation of concerns, DRY, etc) that Microsoft strongly encourages through the .net platform and I believe will find good use in your project.
Based on what you describe a simple approach is to keep in one project -same for all clients- your business layer (including the Services or the Data layer - even with different connection strings for each project) and create separate projects for the Presentation layer.
You may find more information from Scott, CodeProject, or more traditional methods (BTW this is a great book).
Right now I have a single ASP.NET solution with one project in it. The problem I'm facing is that multiple developers are working on different parts of the project that are getting released at different times. Because of this my project manager is thinking we can split the project into multiple dlls instead of just one dll so that we can update just the modules that need to updated.
1. Is splitting the project into multiple projects (multiple dlls) the correct way to solve this problem?
2. If so, how do I do this?
Can I just copy the appropriate aspx/cs files to the new project, remove them from the old one and build? What about Master Pages, CSS, Javascript and User-Controls, will I need to copy those along as well or can they be referenced in the "Core" Project? Would I need to make some adjustments in IIS or can I just copy the aspx from the new "sub-project" to the root of the "Core" Project (essentially where the aspx files are now)?
3. If not, what is the better solution to fix my issue?
Thanks for your help
Edit (to add a bit more clarity):
Right now our structure is something like this (shortened and code-behind implied):
MasterPage.master
styles.css
SplashPage.aspx
Page.aspx
AnotherPage.aspx
a_MasterPage.master
a_Page.aspx
a_AnotherPage.aspx
b_Page.aspx
b_AnotherPage.aspx
b_AlsoAnotherPage.aspx
Can I take all the a_ pages and roll them into one project and all the b_ pages and roll them into another (which would separate the dlls).
If this doesn't make sense please ask and I'll try to explain it better
Yes
How? Don't think in terms of pages, but rather functionality. The best way to handle your issue is to move the business logic out of the ASP.NET experience layer project and put it in class libraries. You can then have different types of developers working on different types of code.
Now, if you truly have different "sites", meaning they serve different purposes, then you may have to move some pages to one and other pages to another. I can't answer whether that is a need or not.
Hopefully, this all makes sense. NOTE: If you code is contained in Page_Load() and event handlers, you are pretty much screwed until you can refactor the code into individual methods.
3.) What about some version control system, wouldn't that serve you better?
Splitting project like this isn't a good idea imo, it would make sense, if you would like to split logical/physical layers of that project (you could have different project for your data access, another for business logic etc.) But splitting to projects, where one contains "welcome.aspx" and second one "contact.aspx".. hmm I would rather use SVN / Git / TFS / Whatever ;)
Normally you split the project according to the function or feature eg. you could split off the data access layer into a different project.
I ussually try to keep my view together and separate the core features, so it would be easy to use the same dll's over different websites.
eg: I have a project with all the methods and a db for user management.
I could deploy this project on a server and reference it in all my websites.
This way users can use the same login over all my websites.
So once you have a core system, everyone can make his own project and just reference the projects needed.
Yes you just move your aspx/c# files to a different project and reference the new project in your existing project.
I do think that every project needs his own masterpage though (last time I checked that is).
I hope this answers you question.
I am trying to think about a web application development framework for our product development. I want to build an ASP.NET application which has many sub-modules in it. My requirements are like:
The application will be a suite of different modules like CRM, Bugtracker, Inventory management, Finance management etc.
Each Module should have their own DLLs.
One project should be for the external container of the application (like the framework) and this project should bring all other modules (of type web application) in the solution to the external container. (Some thing like we have Frames in HTML). So we will publish the external container web application only at the end of the day and all other web application projects will be accessed via that.
I would like to have separate DLL for each module so I don't need to fear about the application breaking when I am deploying my single DLL which controls the entire suite.
I am not sure whether my thoughts are in the right direction. The end result I am looking for is a well-maintained, organized, and modular web application suite.
It is ASP.NET web forms, not MVC. I will use VS2010 for development.
What are the best approaches to do this?
Edit:
The term external container means it acts like a master page which has links to various modules and the various modules are not always in the same project. They can be separate project under the same solution. And I am under the impression that, by the end of the day, I will publish that project only and it will bring the various modules to it.
I actually think the best approach would be one that does not over-architect. I'm concerned that it seems you are producing an overall architecture without sufficient reason.
Are these all new modules? Then just start writing the first one. Use best practices that apply to single modules.
Then write the second one. You'll find you want to use things you already wrote in the first module. Great. That's what refactoring is for. Refactor these things out into one or more "library" projects, re-run all your unit tests, then proceed with the second module.
Repeat until all modules are done.
At the end of this process, if you needed the kind of architecture you've outlined, then you'll have it. If you needed less, then you'll have less, and you will not have spent time creating an architecture which is not tied to real-world requirements.
I'm not going to say this is a "best approach" but I would recommend looking over Dot Net Nuke (DNN) to get some ideas. This started as the old "I Buy Spy" starter web project that Microsoft distributed to show ASP.NET projects, and it took off from there.
edit:
1.The application will be a suite of different modules like CRM, Bugtracker, Inventory management, Finance management etc.
You can do this with DNN. They're also called "modules" in DNN and Drupal.
2.Each Module should have their own DLL's.
Yes, this is a good idea. And you'll see this sort of thing in several content management systems like DNN and Drupal. This way not all implementations of the same website need to have all modules installed.
We have a significant website that is used to host a "service as a solution" application that we charge for (if you aren't an actuary or accountant you won't have heard of it). The lead developer for the past couple years used an earlier version of DotNetNuke as a model for how to refactor the parts of the application that he was allowed to change.
Like others have suggested DNN would probably work for what you're trying to do. If you want to completely roll your own naturally I would turn to some sort of combination of a container "Framework" and a bunch of user controls (.ascx). The container could be as simple as a master page with a menu. Depending on how flexible you want your design you can prefabricate many different pages, each hosting a different control (separate dll as you wish). If you want it to be a little more dynamic you can have one content page that will dynamically load at runtime the desired user control into it. Again this is just a general approach, probably a 30000 feet view into how DNN is implemented anyway.
Name the main project after your company/product and keep it short and simple. You will probably need one or two library projects to support it - these will contain everyday, common logic for such things as error reporting, Web utility methods, etc.
Next, pick one of your intended sub-projects (I don't like the term module in this particular context) and add that to your solution. Whether you are reusing an existing project, or preferably starting from scratch, you will eventually have any common logic in this project moved out to your libraries.
Rinse and repeat. Perhaps take a look at something similar like the Sueetie project which includes several sub-projects like CMS, Blog, Calendar, Forum, etc.
The following article is marked as "outdated" on MSDN but I still think you should take a look at it:
Structuring Solutions and Projects
Also, something similar from the Patterns and Practices Group:
Structuring Projects and Solutions in Team Foundation Source Control
For our company I'm creating a big Extranet website which will feature a set of sub-applications. I'm a bit puzzled by what should be the right setup of the solution and projects.
I have one web application that we call the Portal. It contains the authentication/authorization classes, masterpages, navigation/url routing classes and theme definitions. It will also contain some basic overviews for our customers to get a quick idea of their project status.
In the coming year we are going to develop and integrate more applications with the portal. Think of it as detailed overviews and tools called Feature A, B and C. Over the years we will improve these applications and release new versions. These web applications should fit into the navigation of the Portal seamlessly. I'd like them to reuse the masterpages and themes.
What is the proper way to setup this solution?
How can I tie the applications together, re-use the master pages and keep it maintainable?
How can I share certain webcontrols (ASCX) in a proper way?
We are using TFS, perhaps any branching/merging ideas?
Edit:
I'd like to create it in ASP.Net WebForms, we have the most experience in that area. But basically we can use anything, we've got the webserver under our own control (as long as it is Microsoft oriented, not switching to php or something like that :))
What is the proper way to setup this solution?
The proper way... There are so many. I have seen a lot of applications, and a lot of different setups (a lot of which that I would deem "proper"). What you're really asking is for the best way for your situation.
Because you're building a portal, you'll have the luxury of feature separation which will help you as you develop additional features for your application.
I would setup a single website with a separate folder for each feature. Making it a single website will allow all features to share the same masterpages, usercontrols, and configuration file - without having to do anything special. (On that note, I would put all your master pages in a folder by themselves, and create another folder for your usercontrols).
How can I tie the applications together, re-use the master pages and keep it maintainable?
Again... folders are the best option here. Folders will help separate each feature, making the application easy to manage.
How can I share certain webcontrols (ASCX) in a proper way?
First of all, ascx files are not webcontrols. They are usercontrols. WebControl is a class for creating server controls that reside in a separate assembly. Regarding usercontrols, as I said above, if you put them in a separate folder, they're always in one place and available throughout the application.
We are using TFS, perhaps any branching/merging ideas?
There really isn't anything special you need to do here. There are a lot of different paths you can take regarding branching:
One is to create a branch for every release.
Another is to create a branch for every new feature you add (in your case, this is pretty much the same as the first option).
Yet another is to create a branch for each developer.
When I decide how I am going to branch my code, I think about what will protect me the most. In your case, you need to plan for bug fixes in between feature releases so maybe one branch after each release makes the most sense (call it your dev branch). Given the separation of features, though, one feature may not effect the rest of the application. You may not need this kind of branching to be safe.
As Brian says when making an API public you should commit to it as much as possible, which means it should change as little as possible after the initial release. However to make something that stable requires lots of effort up front so if you aren't ready to commit to the API you should instead internalize it as much as possible and for that reason you might want to combine things more than separating them.
However, I'm not going to suggest an architecture that fits your application based on a 5 paragraph description. What you need to do is to weight pros and cons of having a few big projects vs. having a bunch of loosely coupled small projects. I mean, the more planning you do up front, the easier you will have it down the line, provided you stick with the plan.
So contrary to Brians answer, I wouldn't recommend you make your entire system "as loosly coupled as possible", only that you make it as loosly coupled as it needs to be. ;) Loosely coupled code can cause as much trouble as tightly coupled code, if you are abusing it.
See:
1. What is better, many small assemblies, or one big assembly?
2. Specific down-sides to many-‘small’-assemblies?
In the end, only you know how much you want to focus on each of the "...bilities", maintainability, extensibility, reliability etc. So get your priorities and goals straight and plan accordingly.
Regarding branching strategies you could read the TFS Branching Guideline 2.0 which have a good introduction to various branching strategies ranging from basic to advanced. Even if you don't use TFS this is a good guide to read (I use SVN at the moment). Since I currently work in small teams with 1-4 devs, I tend to use a strategy that is between basic and standard. Not that I'm recommending this for you, but that whats works best for our team.
As for sharing code between projects. In SVN we can use "externals" which means that the shared file will appear in several folders so when you change one copy and commit the change to svn, all the other copies will be updated on the next svn update. However, I can't remember if TFS have something similar.
Note: Beware of externals in SVN... they can cause... problems. ;)
My advice is to try to avoid sharing aspx, ascx and master pages as much as possible. It usually hurts a lot more than it helps. Instead try to use inheritance or other alternatives to achieve your goal.
ASP.NET MVC 2.0 has a concept called "Areas" where you build subsections of an application in isolation from the rest. As far as I know these areas can be maintained in separate projects from the "main" application. It sounds a lot like what you are requesting so maybe you should look into that.
Hope it makes sense. ;)
I would look at making your system as loosely coupled as possible. As/when you add more applications, your website will become less and less reliable (since no component will be up 100% of the time, combining these will reduce your overall reliability). So you should build your system to cater for the non-major services being down (I believe the Amazon homepage, for example, has 100-ish services contributing to it, and as such it's built to be fault-tolerant)
Your APIs between services should remain as stable as possible, such that the implementations can change without breaking the coupling. You should also investigate automated testing of this at the web level (perhaps Selenium or similar?) since testing the individual services will give you little coverage re the overall behaviour.
You might find it useful to look at implementing a custom VirtualPathProvider. On my last project we had multiple ASP.NET sites which needed to share theme files (master pages, user controls, images, style sheets) so I created a VirtualPathProvider which allowed us to map a virtual folder (e.g. /Themes) to any physical folder on the hard drive (e.g. C:\Shared\SiteThemes).
It's not trivial but didn't take too long and hasn't caused any problems. Incidentally it turned out to be a great way to overcome the maximum component limit in WiX... Note that you can't precompile sites that use a VirtualPathProvider.
Use MVC Concepts from now. they give more extendability and flexibility for a robust applications.
You might look at using SharePoint. It's a pretty decent platform for ASP.NET application delivery, particularly if they coexist in an intranet environment; it gives you a lot of stuff for free.
Of course, it has very rough elbows, so to speak, so proceed with caution.
I wouldn't think of the applications as seperate but as modules of the overall portal.
I would recommend you look into MEF as this would seem to be a perfect fit.
http://blogs.msdn.com/hammett/archive/2009/04/23/mef-and-asp-net-mvc-sample.aspx
Currently I am developing a site with about seven partial classes, a few icons, three pages and an App_Themes folder. I was interested to know, is there an industry standard directory structure for anything larger than a small project?
For example, I want to keep the classes in separate folders, the images in separate folders etc. My current directory structure is as follows (not exact, this is from memory):
(root) contains the codebehind and forms
/App_Data
/App_Themes
/Bin
/Images
/Models - I stole the name from MVC. It sounded more appropriate then 'classes'
/FusionCharts - a flash charting library
I briefly played with MVC, and it looked like a nice directory structure, however, I am using ASP.NET Ajax.
So, I guess the question is, is there a way to make this directory structure more orderly in your own opinion? Please give answers as to why you made your decision also :).
I like to be inspired by Microsoft standards, since we are using a Microsoft technology. Plus a somewhat good standard is better than no standard, especially if you work in a larger team.
App_Code is standard of course, because it has a function in ASP.NET, not just a best practice.
I sort of like the MVC standard project's structure:
Content -- Contains subdirectories with Images, Css, Javascript
Controllers -- Maybe N/A in WebForms
Views -- Also maybe overkill in WebForms
The "Content" folder is maybe the key, since it's the lowest common denominator for ASP.NET projects. So if you work with both WebForms and MVC you'll feel at home in all projects, if you know you have your static resources in that folder.
The only "standard" name you are missing for ASP.NET would be App_Code.
Use the convention that makes sense to you and the people that will be maintaining the code. There is no industry standard for this that I've come across in 4+ years of doing ASP.NET development.
I also follow the same structure as mentioned by you. The only additions that I make is have separate folders for scripts,CSS, and resources. As far as I am aware of there is no such industry standard.
I like having a Content folder under which I can put my Css, Js, and Images folders.
Many ASP.Net Web Forms projects will also have a Controls folder for the ASCX controls.
For css styling, we generally use a styles folder, images for image content (sorta an obvious one), js.
You might have a schemas folder, App_Code for ASHX handlers and other types of application code, and a MasterPages folder.
Some auto-created you might see in a Web Forms project are folders are Properties, App_Data, bin, obj, Packages, and TestResults.