I'm working on an ASP.NET web application for our corporate intranet users. I have a form where a user should provide a path to the file on the local network (something like "\localServer\someFolder\someFile.ext") without uploading the actual file. The issue is that users don't want to type the whole file path and want to use some kind of visual browse dialog.
The standard HTML <input type=file> element allows to browse for a file, but most of the browsers (except for IE) don't allow to access file's full path, so I think it should be done by some external component like Silverlight, Flash, Java applet etc.
I tried to do it with Silverlight, but I'm getting a SecurityException when trying to access file's full path using Silverlight's OpenFileDialog class.
This java applet http://jumploader.com/demo_images.html seems to do something similar to what I'm looking for, but it's focused on uploading files - I only need to be able to get file's full path and pass it to the server as a string.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Telerik ASP.NET AJAX RadFileExplorer has the functionality you're looking for:
http://www.telerik.com/products/aspnet-ajax/fileexplorer.aspx
You can use their Custom File Content Provider to hook the GUI to your server's file system.
http://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/fileexplorer/examples/server-sideapi/dbfilebrowsercontentprovider/defaultcs.aspx
This should be possible with Flash's uploading capabilities. SWFUpload has an API that you may be able to access from JavaScript to extract the selected file name without actually uploading anything. See docs here, for example getFile():
getFile is used to retrieve a File Object from the queue. The file retrieved by passing in a file id (the id property from a file object) or a file index (the index property from a file object).
Related
Here's what I would like to accomplish:
I have a file stored in Windows Azure Blob Storage (or for that matter any file which is not on my web server but accessible via a URL).
I want to force download a file without actually downloading the file on my web server first i.e. browser should automatically fetch the file from this external URL and prompts the user to download it.
Possible Solutions Explored:
Here's what I have explored so far (and why they won't work):
Using something like FileContentResult as described here Returning a file to View/Download in ASP.NET MVC to download the file. This solution would require me to fetch the contents on my server and then stream from my server to the browser. For this reason this solution won't work.
Using HTML 5 download attribute: HTML 5 download attribute would have worked perfectly fine however the problem is that while it is really a very neat solution, it is not supported in all browsers.
Changing the file's content type: Another thing I could do (at least for the files that I own) to change the content type property of the file to something that the browser wouldn't understand and thus would be forced to download the file. This might work in some browsers however not in all as IE is smart enough to go beyond the content type and sees the file's content to determine the content type. Furthermore if I don't own the files, then I won't have access to changing the content type of the file.
Simply put, in my controller action I should be able to specify the URL of the file and somehow browser should force download the file.
Is this something which can be accomplished? If yes, then any ideas how I could accomplish this?
Simply put, in my controller action I should be able to specify the URL of the file and somehow browser should force download the file [without exposing the URL of the file to the client].
You can't. If the final URL is to remain hidden, your server must serve the data, so your server must download the file from the URL.
Your client can't download a file it can't get the URL to.
You can create file transfer WCF service (REST) which will stream your content from blob storage or from other sources through your file managers to client browser directly by URL.
https://{service}/FileTransfer/DownloadFile/{id, synonym, filename etc}
Blob path won't be exposed, web application will be free from file transfer issues.
How do I access resources in a .Net Web Project. I created a web project and then in App_LocalResources folder added a resx file "AstroWap.resx". Now how do I access values from that. The property My.Resources itself is not available.
Good reference reading to use resource files here
To create an access properties - right click your solution, select properties then click the link to create a resource file. You should see a excel type grid. Type your key value pairs in there.
To access it should be
<Namespace>.Properties.Resources.<ResourceName>
The issue is probably how you have added the resource. It might have circumvented the auto generated code which gives you the above syntax
You can check if it has added the auto gen code by looking in your web project under properties -> resources.resx -> resource.cs.designer. The designer file is the autogenerated file and you can see the access code for the underlying resx file. This assumes you have used the default resx file as above. See image for example in solution explorer
In addition this SO question does give more options for accessing resx files if you have some project constraints. I appreciate not everyone can do the above due to team work practices etc.. It's just what I do. And it does work.
Use following code for it:
<%=GetLocalResourceObject("labelname")%>
in aspx page.
If your page name is Test.aspx then your resource file must have name as Test.aspx.resx, otherwise you can not access the resource file value.
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
So, I've created my wonderful winforms app that I want to unleash upon the world, and now I am trying to create a simple website to host some basic information and link to the setup file (msi installer file )....
I have a button on the asp.net page and the setup file setupApp.msi in same folder as the asp.net page. I am currently trying the following:
Response.Redirect("http://./SetupApp.msi");
But this best guess at what to do is not working. Is there something wrong with Mime types here? What do I need to put in the click event to allow users to download this file?
The path you are passing in to the method is not valid (there's no server name called ".").
You can pass in a relative path and it should work fine because ASP.NET will resolve the path:
Response.Redirect("SetupApp.msi")
Or if it's not in the same folder, try one of these:
Response.Redirect("../Downloads/SetupApp.msi")
Response.Redirect("~/SomeFolder/SetupApp.msi")
Keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to do the whole redirect at all. Instead of writing code in an ASPX file you could just have a link to your MSI:
Download my app!
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