Two web applications I'm working with are using the ASP.NET membership and each have areas for user information which use this Property name/value storage method in the database.
Here is an example:
PropertyNameValues
publicEmail:S:0:19:yahooIM:S:19:0:timezone:S:19:2:commonName:S:21:4:birthdate:S:25:81:signatureFormatted:S:106:0:gender:S:106:1:fontsize:S:107:1:signature:S:108:0:dateFormat:S:108:15:enableEmoticons:S:123:4:webLog:S:127:0:enablePostPreviewPopup:S:127:5:location:S:132:12:bio:S:144:0:webAddress:S:144:0:interests:S:144:0:icqIM:S:144:0:aolIM:S:144:0:language:S:144:5:occupation:S:149:0:msnIM:S:149:0:
PropertyValues
someemailhere#here.com-6Asia<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<dateTime>0001-01-01T00:00:00</dateTime>20ddd, MMM d yyyyTrueFalseTest Testing-US
I can see the jist of how it works, name values show at what length in the property value string to begin grabbing and when to end - but is there an existing function to split these apart into an array or something?
Thanks!
How this works depends on if you are using a "web site" or a "web application" project type. If you are using a regular asp.net web site project, you will have a dynamically generated Profile object you can use to fetch user properties from.
If your application is MVC or a Web Application Project though, you will have to make your own profile object. I recommend you grab the web profile builder. This tool creates the ProfileCommon object that is needed to get at the profile data.
In general, I personally have found through repeated exposure that the Profile provider system supplied in asp.net is quite dreadful for storing actual user information (the kind of stuff you are using it for). The profile provider mechanism is great for stuff like user preferences (stuff usually called personalization) such as "always show details" or "I prefer the green background". The reason is that the profile system only makes the profile data easily accessable within the request of the one user. If you have admin tools that need to read from multiple user's profiles, you will find that performance will quickly degenerate, and getting at the profile data is actually quite difficult.
For these reasons, I recommend that you consider not using the profile system for the kind of data you are storing there. You will be a lot better off rolling your own tables and objects to store and fetch this particular kind of info. But if you never need to access the data for more than one user at a time, the built-in profile stuff is alright.
It looks like you're referring to the ASP.NET Profile system.
Within the code-behind of an aspx page, just use Profile.publicEmail, Profile.yahooIM, etc. There's an automatically generated class that parses that out for you. See the linked article for more details.
Related
Not sure if this is stackoverflow typically question (I'll remove it if suggested), still may help me understand the possible options here.
I would like to know if it's somehow possible beside core, master and web instances to append new content database (let say for some form's filled with data by web users with CRUD repository using existing sitecore api). Editable/readonly from CMS, visible for exports, reports or charts via CMS using custom modules.
Somehow this DB should be located on the same level with Web Database, it's important to follow templates and functionality from sitecore legacy functionality.
This entire shebang will be used in as Sitecore Custom Module (installation, integration customization, management, blah, blah blah). Important: Items stored in this database are pure data items.
I found vague information on John west Sitecore blog, so what I asking more then the direct solution in front of my eyes references or examples how to, or signals if it's against the policy.
Best reference until now: http://intothecore.cassidy.dk/2009/05/working-with-multiple-content-databases.html article written by Mark Cassidy.
The reason you don't find much information on this is because its very uncommon to add another database which is accessible to Sitecore as per the john west blog. Note the data of that post also. I'm not aware of your requirements but I have never seen it done or found a need for it.
With user input data such as forms, comments etc. You have three data considerations storage, access and reporting. In a scenario where you would like to store this data and access it in Sitecore. I would approach it as follows:
Storage of that data should be in the master database inside a bucket. From version 7.0+ buckets were introduced so you can add virtually unlimited data to a Sitecore database. There was a buckets module which supported 6.3+ but appears to not be downloadable anymore: https://marketplace.sitecore.net/en/modules/sitecore_item_buckets.aspx. The code is out there though and possibly Sitecore support would even provide it.
The master database in a standard production environment (split content management and content delivery environments) if not accessible directly via connection string is made accessible by calling the Sitecore web API or creating a custom web service.
Requirements such as reporting and/or shared access to the data for other applications could possibly provide reasons to create a custom database but otherwise there is no reason not to store it in the master database.
You have to save the information filled by the user in Master database so that you can modify or use it using SItecore API.
Since the users filling the form may not have access to modify Sitecore Master DB. You would have to either switch the user to a user with least permissions required to make those changes(safer) or You would have to disable the security for a while and perform those tasks(not recommended). Both of these are explained in http://www.nehemiahj.com/2012/03/how-to-use-securitydisabler-and_15.html
And then add the form as an item in master db. If the number of form items created using this is more then use Sitecore Buckets.
I want to design and develop a web base software that enable user to report a problem or discussion using ASP.NET and SQL server.
This application might has many forms. For example Form A for reporting bug for software 1 and etc.
I don't want to create a table for keeping data per form.
Solution that comes to my mind is making UserControl per form. and when user chooses a form application loading target usercontrol.
Now I have challenge for save and restore data that user entered into target usercontrol.
What is your suggestion ?
What do you suggest instead of using UserControl ?
I have also review using XML to keeping forms structures but I think its hard to create UI from XML .
I can not see the difficulty in saving and restoring your data.
If you use user control, then I assume you want to reuse it in other forms as well, or it doesnt make any sense.
Or what you want is to load asp.net controls dynamically?
Then step by step:
Firstly create a proper form page you need, then convert it into several user controls (according the business logic).
Reuse user controls you just converted in other forms based on XML
config files, or URL, or query string or session. In XML you can specify the method name you going to call for saving or retrieving data. (That's the structure of one of projects I worked on)
Hoep it helps.
How to: Convert Web Forms Pages into ASP.NET User Controls
I'm doing some research on security and sitemaps in ASP.net and am unfortunately running short on time. I have not worked too much with ASP.net security so I'm not completely sure if I'm heading in the right direction.
Here is my problem:
I have a public website (i.e. on the internet) that will allow any user to sign up to. The website will be developed using ASP.net webforms. These users may create other users and assign these users different roles.
Different roles have different restrictions and the menu is displayed appropriately. For example, a user acting as an administrator can see all menu options. Whereas a limited user will only see some of these menu items.
There needs to be the ability for users on our end to modify what pages certain roles can access. For example, if Role1 can do task X, we would like to be able at some point modify Role1 to no longer do task X. This would be done using an application built in-house.
User types (roles) are to be saved in the database. User permissions (what pages each type can have access to) are also to be saved saved in the database.
Here is something I am thinking of doing:
Implement the authorization and authentication set up built in to ASP.net using the web.config file
Use Sitemaps to dynamically create menus/breadcrumbs from the database
I believe it is possible to do the second one using custom providers (please correct me if I'm wrong). But I am not entirely sure if it's possible to configure the web.config file dynamically.
I suppose this is really more of a yes/no answer but I would just like to make sure I'm not going in the wrong direction. I will be using VS2008 and .net 3.5 framework.
Many thanks.
Yes, it's possible to do what you're saying. You can dynamically create the sitemaps using a custom SiteMapProvider, see this articlet http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/dynamicsitemap.aspx.
You can also modify the web.config at runtime using an XmlReader or if you prefer, just reading it into a string and parsing out the authorization element. I'd put it in a separate file, though, using configSource:
<authorization configSource="auth.config" />
Then you only need to modify that file and not worry about messing up the web.config
I am currently trying to figure out how to best go about implementing an administration side for my application.
I have a user site, where users can log in, customize their profile, submit information etc.
I would like administration users to be able to log in and be able to choose from a list of users. From there, the administrator can submit information for the user just like the user can.
Website Start Page > RogerRabbit > Submit Information
Website Start Page > BillyBob > Customize Profile
So my question is:
How should my pages be laid out?
How should the Web.sitemap file look? Is there a nice way of creating a sitemap (maybe in memory?)
Would this method have to use session variables?
Any suggestions, or tips would be great.
I can't answer your sitemap question but I have implemented a solution like this on one of our systems where I can see exactly what the end user is seeing by impersonating them. I did this mainly for troubleshooting purposes so that when they report a problem to me (such as something missing from their view), I can go in as them and see exactly what they are talking about.
The way I did this, which is admittedly a little crude, was to have an impersonation table in my database which contains the logon name of the user who is doing the impersonating and the logon of the user they wish to impersonate.
I added some override code so that when the user first goes to the page (it uses Windows authentication), it will check to see if that user has an impersonation set in the table and then place this user id in an object in the session state. If there was no impersonation, it would place the actual user id in this same object.
To prevent me from doing things to the user's data as them, there are two properties in this object, one for logon_name, which is what is used by the system for content-customization, and another called NameForLog, which is used when logging any actions. All actions I make will be logged as me.
All areas on the site that display user-customized content look at this session object, so they will always use the impersonated ID and therefore always show me what the user is seeing. Beyond the first page and the logging code, it doesn't even know that it is me it is dealing with.
It isn't the cleanest solution, but it has worked well for me.
I dunno mike... that's a broad set of questions there. Kinda like asking "how to I build a web site in asp.net".
It sounds very much like you need to invest in an introductory "how-to asp.net book" that covers these topic areas. The good news is that just about every beginner to intermediate asp.net book ever written probably hits most of these topic areas.
would like administration users to be able to log in and be able to choose from a list of users. From there, the administrator can submit information for the user just like the user can.
This is a kind of impersonation... and is a lot harder than it sounds. But how you do this depends on how your application authenticates users, authorizes users, and manages roles... which is a whole sub-specialty within asp.net (with it's own dedicated books actually).
1) How should my pages be laid out?
Carefully?
2) How should the Web.sitemap file look? Is there a nice way of creating a sitemap (maybe in memory?)
This is covered on MSDN quite thouroughly. Yes, you can create your sitemaps in memory. I've created sitemaps from data stored in a SQL DB a few times in the past, but I'd have no idea where to even start to explain it. You have to understand the base classes and interfaces used by sitemaps and then make a custom sitemap provider adapted to working with your data and rules for the site's structure.
3) Would this method have to use session variables?
Probably. Most sites with an awareness of "logged in user" need sessions. Not universally true, but nearly so.
I'm writing a pretty straight forward ASP.NET MVC web app: only a couple of CRUD pages, some folders where clients can browse documents and just 3 or 4 roles. The website will be used in a B2B scenario, where every client will have their "own" website.
At this point, the only thing that will change in the website, from client to client is the content (ie. the documents, and the rows of data they'll see). If this is the case, what's the best way to manage roles across all of my clients? I'm looking for the simplest possible solution because this is a proof of concept and I don't want to invest a lot of time right now.
What if it's not just the content that changes? Maybe some clients will want a few custom static pages. At this point, is my only option replicating the entire website? I'm leery of this because it'll become hard to maintain if I get a lot of clients.
I'd appreciate any help... I just don't want to shoot myself in the foot; I'm sure someone has done this before.
I create Virtual Directories in IIS for each client, all pointed back to the same folder where my ASP.NET code resides.
This allows me to support several dozen nearly-identical "web sites," each with their own database that is basically identical in form, only differs in data.
So, my site URLs look like:
http://mysite.com/clientacme/
http://mysite.com/clientbill/
http://mysite.com/clientcharlie/
There are two key implementation details I worked out for this:
I use the Virtual Directory folder name to determine which DSN my code reads from. This is accomplished by creating a simple static method that injects the folder name into a DSN string template. If you want to use the same database to store everyone's data, you can use the folder name as a default filter in your queries.
I store the settings for each web site (headers and footers, options, links to custom reports, etc.) in a simple "settings" table in each database (key, value) rather than in the web.config (which is shared). This allows me to extend the code base over time to customize the experience for each client without forking the code.
For user authentication, I use Basic authentication, and I keep usernames, passwords, and roles in a table in each database.
The important thing is that if you use different SQL Server databases for each client's content, you need to script any changes to your database tables, indexes, etc. and apply them across all databases at the same time (after testing of course). One simple way to do this is to maintain an Excel sheet with a table of database names and a big "SQL" cell at the top. Beside each database name, create a formula to "USE databasename;" and then concat the SQL code at the top.
I'm not sure if this answers your question completely, but as far as maintaining custom "static" pages I found myself implementing a system on a client's MVC website where the client can create "Pages" from their admin control panel and each Page has a collection of "PageContent" entities which consist of a Title and and HTML content field (populated using a WYISWYG editor). Upon creating a page the MVC application maps http://yoursite.com/Page/Page-Url-Specified-By-The-User to that page and renders its content there. Obviously, the pages are dynamic, but as far as the client can tell they have created a brand new custom page with little or no effort.