Use HTML markup in web.config file - asp.net

I want to display a message in my homepage (default.aspx), which is different for each "installation" of my web app. I would like to avoid making a call to the database to show this message.. so I thought of using web.config to store something like this
<add key="WelcomeString" value="lorem ipsus <b>doloret sit amen</b>" />
But I've noticed I can't use html markup in the web.config ...
Is there a better approach, or is there a way to insert html markup into web.config?
Thank you again stack overflow guru's... i'm learning from you a lot of things !

You need to XML encode it, to store it in the XML as a valid attribute value. eg:
<add key="WelcomeString" value="lorem ipsus <b>doloret sit amen</b>" />

Use "<" and ">" instead of "<" and ">":
<add key="WelcomeString" value="lorem ipsus <b>doloret sit amen</b>" />

You have a couple of examples of how to add it to the web.config file, but I would suggest that you consider adding a "localization" XML file to App_Data and read it from there rather than polluting the web.config file with customizations for each installation. You could read this file during application start up and store the values in the HttpRuntime.Cache by key, retrieving them from there as needed. Note that you need a way to regenerate them if they get flushed from the Cache (or mark them as not removable). Use the same technique to encode it for an attribute in the XML file or, if longer, store it in CDATA in the node value.
I use a technique like this with two XML files, defaults and localizations. Defaults supplies default values for the localizable aspects of the application. Localizations, if present, will override the defaults. These are loaded, in my case, into a Singleton object for the application that has strongly-typed properties for the values. Note that this encompasses much more than simply localized strings; they can be arbitrarily complex. The Singleton object has methods to read and apply both defaults and localizations given the path to the XML file.

Related

Replacing the Ajaxfileupload control in a Windows Forms application

We have a windows forms legacy asp.net site that uses the AjaxFileUpload control to manage file uploads. One of our issues is that we have different file type uploads but these types are distinguished not by the extension, but by an element right before the extnsion, EG: .gh.zip vs. .gy.zip. It seems that if I add one of these, but not the other, to the AllowedFileTypes, it doesn't allow either. Is it possible to piggyback some additional JS validation code to prevent an invalid file name, or would I need to replace the entire module with something else, and if so, what would be the recommendation for something that's going to be the least time-consuming that will offer a reasonable amount of configuratability?
That control is open source - you can download the source and change it if you wish.
However, why would not just specifying zip as allowed file type work?
If I set a allowed extension of zip?
Then all of these work:
.gh.zip ok
.gy.zip ok
.pdf no
However, my markup is this:
<ajaxToolkit:AjaxFileUpload ID="AjaxFileUpload1" runat="server"
OnClientUploadCompleteAll="MyCompleteAll" ChunkSize="16384"
AllowedFileTypes="zip"
/>
So, above only allows zip files.
if I try to say add a pdf file to above que, then I get this:
So just add allowed extension type = zip
(Edit: do NOT include the "." in this extension)
I not sure why that would not work?
But as noted, you can grab the source - it is open source code now.
However, I suspect perhaps some other issue is going on here?
Or maybe you need "more" complex file extensions parsing?
I mean, you could for the "rare" cases or say some "out liner" cases allow that file up-load, and THEN the post-processing code could reject the file type anyway, right?
However, looking at above, just specify file type = zip, and you should be ok.

NLog Web - AspNet-User-Identity without domain

I'm currently using the NLog.Web package for writing my .Net logs in my application.
After reading the NLog.Web I've noticed that unlike the ${windows-identity} layout renderer, the ${aspnet-user-identity} layout renderer got no domain parameter for it.
For example, if I want to log the current running windows identity, it logs out: domain\user, but when specifying domain=false, it logs only user.
How do I implement this kind of ability with the ${aspnet-user-identity}? Because when I configured ${aspnet-user-identity:domain=false} it didn't work.
The WindowsIdentity.Name, used in NLog, will always give the full name, including domain.
The logon name is in the form DOMAIN\USERNAME.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.principal.windowsidentity.name(v=vs.110).aspx
I think you need a custom layout renderer, and split it by-hand on the /.
Something like this: (maybe also add soms checks for outOfIndex)
using NLog.LayoutRenderers;
....
//register ${my-aspnet-user-identity}
LayoutRenderer.Register("my-aspnet-user-identity",
(logEvent) => HttpContext.Current?.User?.Identity?.Name?.Split('/')[1]);
Register it as soon as possible.
I found a different way to solve this issue #Julian
in the NLog.config file, i created a variable:
<variable name="aspnetIdentity" value="${replace:searchFor=^\\w+\\\\:replaceWith=:regex=true:inner=${aspnet-user-identity}}" />
As defined in the variable, the regex searches for at least one word (at the start) and finally searching for a backslash.
the other backslashes are written to escape special characters and also double backslashing. Finally, what was found (it's the domain name) will be replaced with an empty string and therefore I got only the username and not the Domain\Username
Thanks for the help #Julian

How do I change the inner text instead of attributes in config transformations?

I've been using config transformations a lot, but I'm struggling with one bit: the changing of "inner text" as opposed to attributes.
As an example, I've got the following in a config file (Sitecore's webforms for marketers if anyone's interested):
<param desc="connection string">Database=sitecore_webforms;Data Source=CHANGEME;user id=CHANGEME;password=CHANGEME;Connect Timeout=30</param>
and I want to change it to the proper connection string. Usually that would be part of an attribute which I can do fine but in this case it's not.
Is this possible using either the "vanilla" transformations or Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi's SlowCheetah?
You need to use the Replace transform. In your case, something like
<param desc="connection string" xdt:Transform="Replace">new connection string here</param>
You'll need to also add the right xdt:Locator attribute, to select the element.

web.config, configSource, and "The 'xxx' element is not declared" warning

I have broken down the horribly unwieldy web.config file into individual files for some of the sections (e.g. connectionStrings, authentication, pages etc.) using the configSource attribute.
This is working fine, but the individual xml files that hold the section 'snippets' cause warnings in VS.
For example, a file named roleManager.config is used for the role manager section, and looks like this:
<roleManager enabled="false">
</rolemanager>
However I get a blue squiggle under the roleManager element in VS, and the following warning: The 'roleManager' element is not declared
I guess this is something to do with valid xml and schemas etc. Is there an easy way to fix this? Something I can add to the individual files?
Thanks
P.S. I have heard that it is bad practice to break the web.config file out like this. But don't really understand why - can anyone illuminate me?
Searching a workaround to this matter using Custom Config Files, I found this solution. Dont know if is the correct one.
The problem is that VS cant find a schema to validate your .config (xml). If you are using "native" configuration elements or when you create your custom .config files you must set to every xml document a schema.
By default (in VS9 for example) all xml files use \Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Xml\Schemas\DotNetConfig.xsd
but you can add more schemas to use.
Before assigning a schema you must create it.
To create a new Schema based on your own custom.config:
open your custom config file
in menubar XML->Create Schema
save it
To assign your schema:
open your custom config file
in properties panel: click on the browse button [..]
set the 'Use' column to your recently created schema
you can assign as many you want. or have one schema for all your different custom .config files
(Sorry, but my English is not so good)
I think that you get the blue squiggles since the schema of your web.config file doesn't declare these custom config sections that you've 'broken out' into individual files.
In investigating this, I see that some of my solutions have the same issue, but the config sections that are provided from microsoft DON'T have the squiggles. eg: we have extracted the appsettings and connectionstrings out into their own files, and they don't get the squiggles, but our custom ones do.
I tried to view the microsoft schema at schemas.microsoft.com/.netconfiguration/v2.0, but I get a 404 when trying to download it.
What I'm trying to say is if you get a copy of the MS schema and alter it to include your external config files, you should be able to get rid of the dreaded squiggles!
HTH,
Lance

Access compilation element in web.config [duplicate]

Is there any way to access the <compilation /> tag in a web.config file?
I want to check if the "debug" attribute is set to "true" in the file, but I can't seem to figure out how to do it. I've tried using the WebConfigurationManager, but that doesn't seem to allow me to get to the <compilation /> section.
Update:
I know I could easily just load the file like an XML Document and use XPath, but I was hoping there was already something in the framework that would do this for me. It seems like there would be something since there are already ways to get App Settings and Connection Strings.
I've also tried using the WebConfigurationManager.GetSection() method in a few ways:
WebConfigurationManager.GetSection("compilation")// Name of the tag in the file
WebConfigurationManager.GetSection("CompilationSection") // Name of the class that I'd expect would be returned by this method
WebConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.web") // Parent tag of the 'compilation' tag
All of the above methods return null. I'm assuming there is a way to get to this configuration section since there is a class that already exists ('CompilationSection'), I just can't figure out how to get it.
Use:
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web.Configuration;
...
CompilationSection configSection =
(CompilationSection) ConfigurationManager.GetSection( "system.web/compilation" );
You can then check the configSection.Debug property.
TIP: if you need to know how to get a value from a config file, check the machine.config file in your \Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework\<version>\CONFIG folder. In there you can see how all the configuration section handlers are defined. Once you know the name of the config handler (in this case, CompilationSection), you can look it up in the .Net docs.
The easy way to check if you're running in debug mode is to use the HttpContext.IsDebuggingEnabled property. It gets its answer from the compilation element's debug attribute which is the same thing you're trying to do.
After all, you can always load up the Web.config file into an XmlDocument and use an XPath query to find out!
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(Server.MapPath("~/Web.config"));
doc.SelectSingleNode("/configuration/system.web/compilation/#debug");
However, I suggest you use the Configuration.GetSection method for solution.
CompilationSection section =
Configuration.GetSection("system.web/compilation") as CompilationSection;
bool debug = section != null && section.Debug;
You can always check debug option on the compiler level by enclosing your code with
#if (DEBUG)
#endif
in case that was the idea...
Try using:
HttpContext.Current.IsDebuggingEnabled
Cant you just load the file up as a regular XML File and use XPath to get the nodes?
Try using the ConfigurationManager.GetSection method.

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