I need to add a gallery to my website, to show screen shots of websites and applications.
I run IIS.
I'm looking for something that is fairly self-contained and ready to integrate without a lot of work. I'd like to through a bunch of images in a directory and let it go.
I would love some nice effects for browsing the gallery.
What would you suggest?
You might want to look at nGallery for ASP.NET 2.0. I've support an application that uses an older version of this. No experience with this particular version, though.
Consider Gallery Server Pro (www.galleryserverpro.com). It is a free open source web gallery based on ASP.NET and has been around for several years. It is easy to integrate into an existing site by using the self-contained ascx user control.
Disclaimer: I am the Creator and Lead Developer.
Related
I was recently asked to create a web page using a static website generator, like Jekyll. My question is this:
How does this differ from just creating a website using HTML or writing the page as an ASP.net project in Visual Studio?
How does it work on the server?
What are some concerns I should have?
I'm a .net guy, so I would like to be able to create this in visual studio, if possible.
Here are some advantages and disadvantages that came to my mind:
Advantages
can be deployed on every server, as it's just static html
has partials, that can be reused, in contrast to normal html, where you have to code/copy paste every thing
you can still code in an IDE
a non developer can edit code (sometimes at least)
Disadvantages
the template language is limited and sometimes a bit awkward/needs to get used to
you have something new in your environment, which has additional costs (more than one developer needs to know how to build the site, ...)
If you know your current toolkit well and you do not have a problem hosting another ASP.net project on your server, I do not see the need for you to introduce another tool in your tool chain.
If you want to do something, where users can generate content - like github does on the github pages - this is something you might consider.
As for Jekyll, we tried it on one project and being devs, who like to code, we ran into it's limitations quite early. You can work around this, but if you know a programming language you will be faster. It was still fascinating, how far we were able to go with just using Jekyll
With ASP.NET pages exist throughout the life cycle of the page, and able to work with request and session context. See this article asp.net page life cycle
HTML pages are static and you can not access any variable that is on the server.
I recommend you follow the step by step this link to go to just understand how to develop ASP.NET http://www.asp.net/get-started
I hope that helped
Vicente
We have a series of ASP.Net applications that have been written over the course of 8 years. Mostly in the first 3-4 years. They have been running quite well with little maintenance, but new functionality is being requested and we are running into IDE and platform issues. The apps were written in .Net 1.x and 2.x and run in separate spaces but are presented as a single suite of applications which use a common navigation toolbar (implemented as a user control). Every time we want to add something to a menu in the nav we have to modify it in all the apps which is a pain. Also, the various versions of Crystal reports and that we used tables to organize the visual elements and we end up with a mess, especially with all the multi-platform .Net versions running. We need to streamline the suite of apps and make it easier to add on new apps without a hassle. We also need to bring all these apps under one .Net platform and IDE.
In addition, there is a WordPress blog styled to match the style of the application suite "integrated" into the UI and a link to a MediaWiki Wiki application as well.
My current thinking is to use an open source content management system (CMS) like Joomla (PHP based unfortunately, but it works well) as the user interface framework for style templating and menu management. Joomla's article management would allow us to migrate the Wiki content into articles which could be published without interfering with the .Net apps. Then essentially use an IFrame within an "article" to "host" the .Net application, then...
Upgrade the .Net apps to VS2010, strip out all the common header/footer controls and migrate the styles to use the style sheets used in the CMS.
As I write this, I certainly realize this is a lot of work and there are optimization issues which this may cause as well as using IFrames seems a bit like cheating and I've read about issues with IFrames.
I know that we could use .Net application styling, but it seems like a lot more work (not sure really). Also, the use of a CMS to handle the blog and wiki also seems appealing, unless there is a .Net CMS out there that can handle all of these requirements.
Given this information, I am looking to know if I am totally going in the wrong direction? We tried to use open source and integrate it over time, but not this has become hard to maintain. Am I not aware of some technology out there that will meet our requirements? Did we do this right and should we just focus on getting the .Net streamlined? I understand that no matter what we do, it's going to be a lot of work. The communities considerable experience would be helpful. Thanks!!
PS - A complete rewrite is not an option.
Hmm, we're in the midst of a project to do something that sounds familiar. We're using www.sitecore.net CMS but you could use the Open Source alternative Umbraco again both of these will have a learning curve, but they're .Net apps and aren't targetted specifically at blogs. SiteCore ultimately can use normal .Net user controls if you want, though it's slightly against their model, but it works.
One thing I'll warn you of is SiteCore Must be the root of your website, it has to control the root of the domain (it has a urlrewriting module that needs to be at the root) and you can tell it to exclude certain folders where your applications might live. You can obviously put your navigation in a folder under the root of the site. Also note SiteCore's a .Net 3.5 application running under the 2.0 runtime.
Are your sub-applications.. Actual seperate applications in virtual dirs or something I'm guessing?
Depending on the nature of the .Net apps, you may find DotNetNuke to be a useful choice.
It's a CMS where you write widgets ('modules') in .Net, then add them to the pages of the CMS. In your case, you'd wrap your existing functionality in such widgets. I've done exactly this several times, and now that I'm used to it it's no big deal.
The downside is you have to learn to swim in the DNN environment, which (like any CMS) has a bit of a learning curve.
I'd have to know a lot more about your existing apps to be sure this is a plausible option. If it looks appealing, you should probably contact someone who's dealt with a situation like yours (such as myself) and go into detail. It's very easy to find yourself in a dead end with these CMS frameworks.
Edit: Like a product mentioned in a different answer, DNN has to control the top level of its subdomain -- all requests begin by going through Default.aspx and are then dispatched in various ways.
A friend of mine really likes using Joomla as a base for his websites. He also likes the power that Asp.Net has and can code in VB.Net.
He wants to use Joomla as the "Master Page" and Asp.Net/VB.Net/SQL Server to handle the main business logic of the application. He is planning on using the Joomla Wrapper Module (an IFrame, joomla modules) to integrate the ASP.Net into the Joomla website.
Joomla will be able to handle the security (users,roles,registration), menu (based on roles), static content (e.g. About Us page) and it will pass an Encrypted Username & Password to the Asp.Net web page (example here).
The goal of the website is to allow users to register & subscribe to a (free or paid) service where they will be able to customize content and download it as a file.
What disadvantages are there when doing this? Are there work arounds?
Some issues that I can think of are:
Links clicked in an IFrame won't change the browser's url which means that you can't bookmark pages and they aren't in the browsers history.
If Asp.Net has to know the users/roles (which is very likely) then it would have to access the Joomla database or keep its own user table which will have to be in sync with Joomla's users.
EDIT:
I would never build a new website this way, but I was looking for concrete points to convince my friend that using Joomla and Asp.Net together isn't a good idea.
I believe your friend's idea is fine. Both platforms have strong points. Joomla is a mature open source CMS platform that has an enormous amount of community contributed components and it is easy to use which makes it appealing. But I can also see instances where you may want to include ASP.Net functionality in certain scenarios. I have had clients who use Joomla but wanted an app I have written in .Net and it did not make sense to spend the time or money to rewrite it in PHP and MySql. The two can be integrated securely. I wish your friend luck in his endeavors.
I don't see what advantage you get from using Joomla when the app is ASP.net (nor the advantage of coding an ASP.net app when the framework uses PHP/MySQL).
I'm not convinced the security is tight because you can open iframes and bypass the Joomla security. Then you talk about passing username/password to the iframe - but now you need to validate this again through the ASP.net app.
I once coded an app in raw PHP and included it in a Joomla site using iframes. I realized fairly quickly that there was basically no security because the raw PHP had no knowledge of Joomla (although the app was not visible to site visitors and only known about by admin). I quickly recoded it into a built-in component.
To me, this sounds like you're reinventing the wheel on both sides of the app. If you want to use Joomla, either learn how to make components (it's pretty simple) and do it in PHP, or hire someone to do it for you ;).
If PHP is not your strong point, then use a full ASP.net site, perhaps with a CMS as GmonC suggested. Even creating your own basic CMS with some pre-built components (e.g. Telerik) would probably be quicker than integrating PHP and ASP.
Seriously, IMHO, if you're not going to integrate some legacy system or isn't doing this kind of "integration" development as an "experiment" to learn something - in a summarized way, if you just want to have your work done, I think the description you provided inserts a lot of complexity and overhead that aren't needed in the first place.
This added complexity of two completely different ecosystems is a disadvantage to what should be just simpler. I really believe you should try to use Joomla or other CMS written in .net like dotnetnuke (or build your own) instead of this configuration.
If you add more information about what are the goals and objectives of this project, my opinion may change. Until them, I keep my opinion of simplicity.
The time and effort you are going to go through to use Joomla is going to far outweight what it would take to just get some other CMS that was designed for .NET.
Stop over-engineering yourself into a midlife crisis.
Also, Joomla? Seriously? Joomla?
me too don't get any advantages for joomla, it's big system and it just as good as wordpress for regular projects, just wordpress is much simplier. joomla has no good documentation to learn and hard to extend.
Recently I've been asked to develop a small web site/application.
The site should have some code behind it as in any web application, and the client also needs CMS editing capabilities. He is familiar with Joomla, so he wants the same experience.
I have vast experience in writing ASP.NET (C#), and almost no experience in PHP.
From where I see it, I have a few options:
Build an application based on a ASP.NET CMS - I don't know which CMS to choose
Build an application based on a PHP CMS (i.e. Joomla) - The development time will be much longer since I'll have to learn PHP
Build everything in ASP.NET and add basic CMS capabilities myself - There's a chance the client will be less happy with that
So I'd be happy to hear any suggestions regarding the path I should choose.
Thank you,
Don
If you're considering an ASP.NET CMS, I'd recommend you look at Sitefinity. It's built by Telerik (well known control developer) and is pretty robust. I've been developing with it for about 4 years and very happy with the product. They have a community edition which is free, with very minimal limitations in place (you can only have one CMS user login for editing, must have a small 'powered by' logo in your footer, etc.).
The other great thing about Sitefinity is that it is built on top of ASP.NET best practice and principles (master pages, themes, provider model, etc.)
I'd take a look at Grafitti or Umbraco :-)
i have created a project in asp.net.now i want to implement asp.net administration tool in my project for user management.The tool works fine in a website ,but in a project it does not work.
Actually i have used the follows links to do this:-
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb515342.aspx
When i implemented this walkthrough in the project, the Profile.aspx.vb shows errors.Means in this walkthrough it is specified that profilecommon will be formed dynamically.In website its working.But in project its shows 'ProfileCommon is not defined. What may me the reason?
It sounds like you want to implement your own version of the ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool (WSAT) for use "inside of" your own website.
The walk-through that you link to is okay, however, it doesn't walk through creating anything that is particularly generic and can be simply "dropped in" to an existing web site.
I'd suggest looking at this tutorial:
Rolling Your Own Website Administration Tool
as a way of creating your own set of pages specifically for user/role/membership management. You can even download the code for the article if you don't want to re-type it all out yourself. Unfortunately, the code for this tool and in this article is in C#, however, the code is not especially complex and should be able to be easily converted to VB.NET using one of the many available code converter tools.
There is also this tutorial:
Users and Roles On The Production Website
which is VB-specific and should help with building your own WSAT-like tool.
Some time ago, on the CodePlex site, there was an ASP.NET WSAT Starter Kit project that also served the same purpose (and arguably improved on the "default" WSAT considerably), however, that project unfortunately no longer exists. After some searching however, it appears as though the code for this tool is still available, so you could perhaps take a look at that tool also (the code is in VB).
You can find that here:
ASP.Net WSAT (Web Site Administration) Starter Kit. What happened?
(check the very last post at the bottom of the page).