ASP.NET How can I write a message on the screen without the end user removing it? - asp.net

I have written a ASP.NET program for a customer, I want to add a message similar to "Preview version, ABD Consulting" on the master.master page, I had thought to use Response.write but it messes up the look of the page as it seems to move page elemets. If I use a label the customer can remove it from the Master.master file, any suggestions? The customer is in a different country so I want to ensure I'm paid.
Many thanks

Serve it on your own server. If it's a preview, they shouldn't have access to the code anyway.

There is nothing you can do unless you host it or control the web server it runs on. Nothing you do in code will matter if they are smart enough. They can write their on HTTP Handlers and replace anything they want.

If you programmatically write out the label during the OnPrerender or Render of the page then the client will not be able to remove it. If you then randomize the ID given to the element, they will find it incredibly hard to apply any javascript functions or CSS styles to it, especially if you directly add the styles to it.
Something like this (pseudo code):
HtmlGenericControl label = new HtmlGenericControl("div");
label.ID = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
label.InnerText = "My copyright or ownership text";
label.Style.Add(HtmlTextWriterStyle.Height, "50px");
label.Style.Add(HtmlTextWriterStyle.Width, "100px");
if you then absolutely position it, it should always show up. Note that it isn't totally untouchable and fool proof, but you want to just make it hard enough that the client doesn't try to remove it.

Obfuscate it in a dll and use the Current Context to write a pretty div like the one that StackOverflow.com uses on top.

I'm with George and Rick - don't let them have the source and serve it up from a server you control. In addition, I'd created a background image that says "Demo". This will remind that they need to pay up.

Related

Print Friendly Page

So I would like to be able to have a print button for entries in our database so users can print an entry via a print friendly "form".
My thought was to create a separate page, add labels and have those labels pull the relevant information.
I know I can add the open widget information via this code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showPage(app.pages.TestPrint);
But I'm running into a few problems:
I can't get the page to open in a new window. Is this possible?
window.open(app.pages.TestPrint);
Just gives me a blank page. Does the browser lose the widget source once the new window opens?
I can't get the print option (either onClick or onDataLoad) to print JUST the image (or widget). I run
window.print();
And it includes headers + scroll bars. Do I need to be running a client side script instead?
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
To get exactly what you'd want you'd have to do a lot of work.
Here is my suggested, simpler answer:
Don't open up a new tab. If you use showPage like you mention, and provide a "back" button on the page to go back to where you were, you'll get pretty much everything you need. If you don't want the back to show up when you print, then you can setVisibility(false) on the button before you print, then print, then setVisibility(true).
I'll give a quick summary of how you could do this with a new tab, but it's pretty involved so I can't go into details without trying it myself. The basic idea, is you want to open the page with a full URL, just like a user was navigating to it.
You can use #TestPrint to indicate which page you want to load. You also need the URL of your application, which as far as I can remember is only available in a server-side script using the Apps Script method: ScriptApp.getService().getUrl(). On top of this, you'll probably need to pass in the key so that your page knows what data to load.
So given this, you need to assemble a url by calling a server script, then appending the key property to it. In the end you want a url something like:
https://www.script.google.com/yourappaddress#TestPage?key=keyOfYourModel.
Then on TestPage you need to read the key, and load data for that key. (You can read the key using google.script.url).
Alternatively, I think there are some tricks you can play by opening a blank window and then writing directly to its DOM, but I've never tried that, and since Apps Script runs inside an iframe I'm not sure if it's possible. If I get a chance I'll play with it and update this answer, but for your own reference you could look here: create html page and print to new tab in javascript
I'm imagining something like that, except that your page an write it's html content. Something like:
var winPrint = window.open('', '_blank', 'left=0,top=0,width=800,height=600,toolbar=0,scrollbars=0,status=0');
winPrint.document.write(app.pages.TestPage.getElement().innerHTML);
winPrint.document.close();
winPrint.focus();
winPrint.print();
winPrint.close();
Hope one of those three options helps :)
So here is what I ended up doing. It isn't elegant, but it works.
I added a Print Button to a Page Fragment that pops up when a user edits a database entry.
Database Edit Button code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showDialog(app.pageFragments.FragmentName);
That Print Button goes to a different (full) Page and closes the Fragment.
Print Button Code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showPage(app.pages.ModelName_Print);
app.closeDialog();
I made sure to make the new Print Page was small enough so that Chrome fits it properly into a 8.5 x 11" page (728x975).
I then created a Panel that fills the page and populated the page with Labels
#datasource.item.FieldName
I then put the following into the onDataLoad for the Panel
window.print();
So now when the user presses the Print Button in the Fragment they are taken to this new page and after the data loads they automatically get a print dialog.
The only downside is that after printing the user has to use a back button I added to return to the database page.
1.
As far as I know, you cannot combine window.open with app.pages.*, because
window.open would require url parameter at least, while app.pages.* is essentially an internal routing mechanism provided by App Maker, and it returns page object back, suitable for for switching between pages, or opening dialogs.
2.
You would probably need to style your page first, so like it includes things you would like to have printed out. To do so please use #media print
ex: We have a button on the page and would like to hide it from print page
#media print {
.app-NewPage-Button1 {
display : none;
}
}
Hope it helps.
1. Here is how it is done, in a pop up window, without messing up the current page (client script):
function print(widget, title){
var content=widget.getElement().innerHTML;
var win = window.open('', 'printWindow', 'height=600,width=800');
win.document.write('<head><title>'+title+'/title></head>');
win.document.write('<body>'+content+'</body>');
win.document.close();
win.focus();
win.print();
win.close();
}
and the onclick handler for the button is:
print(widget.root.descendants.PageFragment1, 'test');
In this example, PageFragment1 is a page fragment on the current page, hidden by adding a style with namehidden with definition .hidden{display:none;} (this is different than visible which in App Maker seems to remove the item from the DOM). Works perfectly...
2. You cannot open pages from the app in another tab. In principle something like this would do it:
var w=window.parent.parent;
w.open(w.location.protocol+'//'+w.location.host+w.location.pathname+'#PrintPage', '_blank');
But since the app is running in frame nested two deep from the launching page, and with a different origin, you will not be able to access the url that you need (the above code results in a cross origin frame access error). So you would have to hard code the URL, which changes at deployment, so it gets ugly very fast. Not that you want to anyway, the load time of an app should discourage you from wanting to do that anyway.

Adding Refresh Tag to View

I need a view to refresh automatically every 20 seconds, and have added the following code to the view header via the views GUI - with no success. The code (or portions of it) are simply displayed on the view and no updating is performed. I've tried omitting both and just the ending ?php statement. If someone can tell me the proper code to use, or a better approach at updating the view automatically, I'd be very appreciative. Thanks.
print "<meta http-equiv=\"refresh\" content = \"20\" />;
There are a few modules that can take care of this for you via AJAX without refreshing the page.
This should take care of everything for you: http://drupal.org/project/ajax_views_refresh
Be sure to get the main AJAX module as the base.
A more complex one, if you want to code a bit: http://drupal.org/project/live_update
If you want to just refresh nodes and the view is on them you can do the old school refresh with this... http://drupal.org/project/refresh
Your code isn't coming through, but if it's php code make sure that the input format for the view header is set to "PHP Code"
Read the fine print under the text area. Sometimes PHP Code format doesn't require <?php tags. Some modules implement this differently.
Use drupal_set_html_head
For example:
drupal_set_html_head('<meta http-equiv="refresh" content = "20" />');

ASP.NET 3.5 - Making a field readonly/unmodifiable without "disabling" it

I have a web application with a form that has disabled fields in it. It allows a "Save As" function which basically means the settings can be copied into a new configuration (without being modified) and in the new configuration they can be changed to something else. The problem I am running into with this is that since the fields are disabled, they are not getting posted through and do not appear in the context object on the server side.
When I removed the logic to disable the fields, that part works fine. So the remaining problem is, how to "disable" the fields (not allow any change of the data in any of the entry fields) without really "disabling" them (so that the data gets posted through when saving)?
I was originally looking for a way to do this in CSS but not sure if it exists. The best solution is of course, the simplest one. Thanks in advance!
(Note: by 'disabled' I mean "The textboxes display but none of the text inside of them can be modified at all". It does not matter to me whether the cursor appears when you click inside it, though if I had a preference it would be no cursor...)
http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/att_input_readonly.asp
readonly attribute is what you want.
i would suggest that instead of using the non-updateable field values from the page's inputs, you retrieve the original object from the DB and copy them from there. It's pretty trivial using something like Firebug to modify the contents of the page whose form will be posted back to modify the values, even if they are marked as readonly. Since you really want the values from the original, I would simply reget the object and copy them. Then you don't need to worry about whether the original (and non-updateable) properties get posted back at all.

Strategies to manage a single browser instance with no new tabs/windows?

All the browsing to this particular website should happen within the instance it was logged-in from. It should not allow side-by-side browsing if opened in a new tab or a new window. In other words if I am already browsing (and logged-in), and decide to open an new tab/window to browse the same site, my server should trap this, and report a friendly message.
Is this possible? Also I want to know about cross platform feasibility of this requirement.
We put in a real quick and dirty for this on an internal system when IE7 came out due to the changes in the way session carried across tab instances from IE6.
This was ASP and used a combination of Session and Javascript, but could easily be ported to ASP.NET. Worked for us without a problem until we replaced it with registry hacks to change IE TAB behaviour.
If this is for an open system it's probably no good unless you are happy to require JavaScript but guess it might help you in some way.
<script language="JavaScript">
<%if session("window") = "" Then%>
window.name = "LOCKwindow";
<%session("window") = "set"%>
<%else%>
if (window.name != 'LOCKwindow') {
document.write('<h1>Sorry just one tab allowed</h1>');
}
<%end if%>
</script>

Asp.net and JavaScript pop up windows

I am writing an intranet application and am considering the use of a pop up window. I am not worried about accessibility since it's an intranet app.
The scenario is such as I need to be able to have the same code be used in a server page as well as in the middle of a process; which is why I decided when using it in the middle of the process, it's best to have it as a pop up window to running out of the real estate on the screen.
Any thoughts on this? I am hesitant to use a pop up window in such a manner as I usually only use it for error messages.
I don't completely understand what you're trying to do, but I think a popup window might be somewhat of an issue if the user's browser automatically blocks popup windows. Plus, if you were trying to run a process in the popup window, the user could close it and no longer have a way to check on the process.
Would it be possible to use Ajax to call back to a web service that gives the page information about the process? You could give the user a way to make the Ajax call to check on the status of the process or just have it continually polling in the background.
Edit:
You said you weren't too familiar with Ajax. For the most part, there are libraries to handle all the of hard details. I'll recommend jQuery because that's what I've been using for a while now.
If you go the Ajax route you'll be able to contain everything on one page and make the updates you need to make when the Ajax call is successful. Depending on how you write the code, it should be pretty reusable if you do it right. It really depends on how specific the your needs on each page.
Take a look at the jQuery documentation though. It may have what you need already built into it. Otherwise, someone else might be able to suggest some reasons why their favorite JavaScript library works better for what you're trying to do.
I think you might want to do something like this:
Inside of the parent page:
<input id="btnShowModal" runat="server" type="button" value='Show Modal' onclick="ShowModal()" />
function ShowModal()
{
var retVal = window.showModalDialog("MyPopup.aspx?param1=value","","center=yes;dialogWidth=200px;dialogHeight=200px;status:0;help:0")
if(retVal != "" && retVal != undefined)
{
//This code will be executed when the modal popup is closed, retVal will contain the value assigned to window.returnValue
}
}
Inside of the modal popup:
<input id="btnSave" runat="server" type="button" value='Save' onclick="Save()" />
function Save()
{
window.returnValue = "Whatever you want returned to the parent here"
window.close()
}
The usual argument against popup windows is that they are unreliable. The user may have disabled script initiated popups, I know I have.
In a controlled environment, such as an inranet, you may be able to be guaranteed that this is not the case, but even so, why risk it, there is an alternative.
Instead of popping up a new window just insert a new, absolutely positioned <div> into the document and insert your content into that using ajax or even an <iframe>. There are lots of examples/libraries on the web.
Thickbox for jQuery for example. There are of course scripts that don't require libraries.
I generally use a div with a z-index and absolute positioning; the .show() can be written and called on demand, it would have a button to .close(), and AJAX can make it seem modal so it must be clicked to close if you so desire. Then again, I hate messageboxes.
I was trying to avoid AJAX, simply because I have never used and don't have the time frame to learn it now. However, I am not totally opposed to it.
In short what I need to do is for the pop up window interact back with the page. Imagine that on the page I am building the links of the chain. Each link has unique properties. When user clicks on "ADD LINK" button, I was thinking have a pop up window with the little form and a Save button. The only issue with this is that a pop up needs to interact with the page; we need to know when something has been saved or not saved.
A div on the same page is one way. A pop up is yet another way. Another catch is that this code (adding new link) needs to be reusable, because I am also going to have a page that just creates new links.

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