Display loading message and then prompt for open / save - asp.net

I'm trying to get a page to show a "loading..." message while I create a report and then I'd like to trigger an open / save on the report I've just created.
I can create a static loading page but I don't know how to trigger the open / save dialog.
I could insert an <iframe> but then I would have to save the created report on the server side.
What I'm looking for is a way to just embed the created report into the HTML and let the browser deal with (the report files are Excel and PDF).
Is there a way to do that? I looked at <embed> but it requires a URL, same as <iframe>.
Maybe my best bet is to handle everything in an Http handler and make a first call to generate the report and then do a redirect to display it (and trigger the open / save).
Any ideas?

Are you allowed to use javascript?
You could have javascript on the loading page that either pops up a new window with the report generation or triggers a redirect to the report generation. In the report generation handler you can then set the content-disposition header to force the open/save box.

In the end, I didn't bother with the waiting message. I just point my Silverlight client at the HTTP handler address and wait for it to create it. I had issues with the <embed> tag and the Acrobat Reader plugin (the plugin would time out and not load the report when it was ready) but that doesn't happen at all when the browser waits for the page to load.
So, not an answer but it works.

Related

download file and redirect page in asp.net

I want to write a program where after button click page will be redirected and one pdf file will be download. I am writing the following code under the button click event. but it is showing the error.
Response.TransmitFile("Filename")
Response.Redirect("~/Redirect.aspx")
Response.End()
It is impossible, because file download will get HTTP status 200 (with file in response). Redirect is 301/302, but cannot contain file in response.
Moreover when modern browser receive a file it does not change the current URL.
If you really want to have such effect you have to create something on client side. For example you can use jquery file download which has events after download and on error. More on examples page

Forcing the browser to pop a save as dialog box from a link pointing to remote url

I am building a web app that lets the user directly download files on a cdn by clicking a link. The link should point to the cdn url directly in order to minimize the load on our servers.
We would like the to have the browser pop up the save as dialog box when the user clicks the link to download the file and not have the browser display the content of the file at all. So the page should not reload. However, we don't have access to setting the HTTP headers sent back from cdn. Is it possible to still pop up the save as dialog box for download using client-side code?
Is it possible to still pop up the save as dialog box for download using client-side code?
No. Unless the file type is something the browser does not understand (or the HTTP header Content-Disposition is "attachment"), the "Save As" dialog will not appear.
This behavior cannot be changed by JavaScript.
The behavior is controlled by the Content-Disposition header, unless the browser simply doesn't understand how to display content of the type returned. Without the ability to change the Content-Disposition header to attachment, you can't force the browser to download the file instead of render it. This must be done server-side.

File Uploading without page refresh in Web pages

Hii,
Any one knows how to upload files to the physical location of the server. It is possible using file upload control that i know. But i want to avoid the external postbacking of the page. For e.g exactly like what in the yahoo mail did.
In yahoo mail latest version if you attach a file that won't post back and attach that file in to server. What is the technology behind that?
Normally when you submit a form it does a POST request to the server, causing a refresh. Ajax requests get round this by using JavaScript to send the POST data through to the server, and that doesn't need a page refresh.
Ajax requests can't be used to send file data though, so the best way to currently do it is with an iframe hack - you use JavaScript to dynamically build up a form within an iframe, submit that form via JavaScript, and listen for the iframe's onload event. So you know when the form has been submitted. A version of this approach is detailed here:
http://www.webtoolkit.info/ajax-file-upload.html
Other methods to do this would include using a Flash-based solution like http://www.swfupload.org/ or a wrapper like http://www.plupload.com/ - these will prevent you having to roll your own solution and will also provide some extra functionality - upload progress feedback, for example.

File uploading in AJAX updatepanel without full postback

I have a update panel, in the update panel I have fileupload control and button control, On button click, I need the file that I have upload in the fileupload control in updatepanel.
Exact scenario, I have 8 tabs on page, each tab contains too much information, One of the tab is Attachment, when user click on Add New Attachment Modal Popup shown, Modal contains detailsview in Updatepanel and in the detailsview I have fileupload control, when user hit save button, detailsview inserting event fired, In the inserting event I need the file that I have upload.
Please Note, My page is heavy and I don't want full postBack.
Does anyone have solution of this issue?
Advance thanks for your kind help.....
For solve this problem, Please see the following step.
Add ajax-upload to your detail view.
iframe-based uploader like Resource#1.
Silverlight-based & Flash-based uploader. I like this technique because it doesn't require any server-side script for display current upload status. But in HTML5, you can create this without using any web browser plug-in.
Commercial uploader like Resource#2. that use hidden iframe for uploading.
Upload file to temporary location.
System response the temporary location. Next, client keep temporary location in hidden input in detail form.
Keep temporary location with session_id. You can store it in database or Session variable depend on your framework.
When you click on the save button, the system will move the files to their real location
Note. System will automatically delete the expired file from the temporary location.
Resource
ASP.NET File Upload with Real-Time Progress Bar
ASP.NET File Upload like GMail (Commercial)
Update
After almost one year, I just found a great 3rd-parties control for this question. This is an open source plug-in of jQuery. It name Plupload that allows you to upload files using HTML5, Silverlight, Flash or normal forms and it provide some unique features such as upload progress, image resizing and chunked uploads.
You can try & test Plupload by click here.
Can't be done without co-operating binaries being installed on the client. There is no safe mechanism for an AJAX framework to read the contents of a file and therefore be able to send it to the server. The browser supports that only as a multipart form post from a file input box.
The problem is with the way the HTML file upload control works, has nothing to do with ASP.net, for the file upload control to work you need a full post of the form data. You can only simulate that your are not doing a full postback, by doing all the operation in a hidden iframe that does the actual uploading
The sites you see that do provide this functionality generally use flash or an iframe so that the postback occurs in the iframe and gives the illusion of an ajax request.
HTH
OneSHOT
I've tried swfupload (http://swfupload.org/), but do keep in mind that you have to jump through hoops if you're using forms authentication with non-IE browsers. This is apparently a flash bug, and it's not fixed in flash 10. I decided against using it in our framework because of this bug, but it was otherwise a great product.
I recommend the uploader widget from YUI. See http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/uploader/
I think you could use it to accomplish your goal. Your javascript would need to fetch the file back down to the client from the server after it completed its upload. But the page would not refresh--the upload is through flash and a hidden iframe. The download to show the file's contents to the user would be via ajax.
If the user does not "approve" the upload, then simply make another ajax call to the server to delete the file.

How can I know when .aspx call is finished?

I am building a Flex Application that calls a .aspx page on the same webserver which builds a PDF report using SQL Reporting Services. When the report is built it prompts the user to open or save the PDF.
We are trying to find a way to display a Progress Bar to let the user know that the report they requested is being built, and then destroy the Progress Bar once the report is finished being built.
I've tried opening a new window using JavaScript and trying to catch when the window closes, as well as trying XMLHTTPRequest, but nothing to seems to work.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
There are 2 options:
Use the FileReference class in Flex to programmatically invoke your aspx file. You will be able to track the progress of the call from within Flex by listening to its events. But the users can only save the PDF, not open it.
Have an intermediate HTML page that displays a loading icon and then refresh itself to your PDF generating ASPX page. Encode your aspx url along with parameters etc and set it as a parameter to this intermediate page so it knows what to load.
If you don't have control over the page to be able to put JavaScript on it to hit a URL (or call back to the parent/opener), then you might consider whipping up an aspx page of your own to host a ReportViewer control, and display the report inside of that. This would require you to create a .NET website with a page and a web.config - you wouldn't need to do more than make it receive any parameters your report needs, and it would be do-able via inline-to-the-aspx code as opposed to requiring in-depth .NET knowledge.
Or, you could hit the SS-RS API and render the report directly. Here, you'd craft a URL with parameters for the report on the SS-RS API site to accept. I think, though I don't know for sure, that the SS-RS UI uses the API itself behind the scenes. By default the API is hosted in a site called "reportserver" - you might sniff HTTP traffic while the report is being rendered to get you started with the URL that you'd need to hit.
Another option not mentioned here is to create a .Net webservice, add it to your flex project and when it hits the result handler you know the file is created at that point.

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