I am seeking some web architecture advice: I would like to know how to share common files, e.g. stylesheets, amongst web applicaitons that span virtual directories and many developers as opposed to having redundant files within each project? What are some recommendations?
It's somewhat hard to say, without knowing more about your web application.
Firstly, are you sure that you actually want to do this? One of your "many developers" could change the stylesheet, expecting it to only affect one application, and have it affect others. Things may end up even more messy with you having to create per-application stylesheets that override things in the shared one, etc. I'd consider these sorts of potential side-effects before going ahead with this.
But if you do actually want to do it, just host the stylesheet somewhere and have all the applications reference that location in their <link> or #import statements for it. There's no restriction that forces you to use a stylesheet from the same "site". If you want it to look nice, set up its own subdomain or something, like http://shared.whatever.com/css/styles.css.
Most source control solutions offer a method of sharing files between seperate projects. SourceGear Vault for instance.
This will allow you to manage your files (be they css, dll, or even images) in a single location and then any project that needs a set of files can link to those common files. The source control will pull them into the project but any time you edit them, it will update them in the common location.
You could create another virtual directory that contained the common/shared files and have the other web apps access them from there.
Related
Right now I have a single ASP.NET solution with one project in it. The problem I'm facing is that multiple developers are working on different parts of the project that are getting released at different times. Because of this my project manager is thinking we can split the project into multiple dlls instead of just one dll so that we can update just the modules that need to updated.
1. Is splitting the project into multiple projects (multiple dlls) the correct way to solve this problem?
2. If so, how do I do this?
Can I just copy the appropriate aspx/cs files to the new project, remove them from the old one and build? What about Master Pages, CSS, Javascript and User-Controls, will I need to copy those along as well or can they be referenced in the "Core" Project? Would I need to make some adjustments in IIS or can I just copy the aspx from the new "sub-project" to the root of the "Core" Project (essentially where the aspx files are now)?
3. If not, what is the better solution to fix my issue?
Thanks for your help
Edit (to add a bit more clarity):
Right now our structure is something like this (shortened and code-behind implied):
MasterPage.master
styles.css
SplashPage.aspx
Page.aspx
AnotherPage.aspx
a_MasterPage.master
a_Page.aspx
a_AnotherPage.aspx
b_Page.aspx
b_AnotherPage.aspx
b_AlsoAnotherPage.aspx
Can I take all the a_ pages and roll them into one project and all the b_ pages and roll them into another (which would separate the dlls).
If this doesn't make sense please ask and I'll try to explain it better
Yes
How? Don't think in terms of pages, but rather functionality. The best way to handle your issue is to move the business logic out of the ASP.NET experience layer project and put it in class libraries. You can then have different types of developers working on different types of code.
Now, if you truly have different "sites", meaning they serve different purposes, then you may have to move some pages to one and other pages to another. I can't answer whether that is a need or not.
Hopefully, this all makes sense. NOTE: If you code is contained in Page_Load() and event handlers, you are pretty much screwed until you can refactor the code into individual methods.
3.) What about some version control system, wouldn't that serve you better?
Splitting project like this isn't a good idea imo, it would make sense, if you would like to split logical/physical layers of that project (you could have different project for your data access, another for business logic etc.) But splitting to projects, where one contains "welcome.aspx" and second one "contact.aspx".. hmm I would rather use SVN / Git / TFS / Whatever ;)
Normally you split the project according to the function or feature eg. you could split off the data access layer into a different project.
I ussually try to keep my view together and separate the core features, so it would be easy to use the same dll's over different websites.
eg: I have a project with all the methods and a db for user management.
I could deploy this project on a server and reference it in all my websites.
This way users can use the same login over all my websites.
So once you have a core system, everyone can make his own project and just reference the projects needed.
Yes you just move your aspx/c# files to a different project and reference the new project in your existing project.
I do think that every project needs his own masterpage though (last time I checked that is).
I hope this answers you question.
In a website, I see some developers put code into app_code, and sometimes appcode (due to some bug), other files into DataModel, and other files into miscellaneous folders.
Is there a standard approach to organizing code within an application?
How is it different between an ASP.NET, MVC, Silverlight, Console, Database, and WCF application? The reason I mention WCF is because many people seem to have a shared types library that is linked between the server and client code.
Where can I learn these common practices without having to try, fail, and try again. I'd rather just learn it once from the experts.
the most standard well organized is MVC framework. For anything else, mostly i organize folders as namespace.
eg companyName.projectName.folderName
myCompany.StackOverFlow.Extension
myCompany.StackOverFlow.OpenID
There is no set in stone 'best practice' standard for organizing namespaces. My personal approach to keeping projects organized is to limit the content of any directory/namespace to about 20 items. This means I can fit the full contents of a folder into my screen, and also see every other item surrounding it (assuming other folders are collapsed).
On the other hand, lots of folders without much content can make navigation difficult as well.
Another thing you should do is to separate your solution into projects based on dependencies. For example if you are using m-v-vm, you should have a project for each of Model, View, and ViewModel.
Files placed in AppCode should only be files directly relevant to the presentation modules. Other files (ie ViewModel, Model, Controller etc depending on the framework you're using) would be preferably placed in separate projects.
Take a look at the "WCF the Manual Way…the Right Way" http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=0809101
We have two asp.net sites (based on episerver).
Using Telerik Asp.net controls.
We have some functionality that we want to have available in both sites.
Right now one of the sites use webparts/usercontrols and the other uses usercontrols.
Is there any way to share the functionality between these sites?
What I would like is to be able to share usercontrols between the sites.
Since your talking about user controls I'm assuming you also have .ascx files that are part of the user controls, which makes this tricky.
I guess the ideal solution would be to move everything into server controls, that way you could just reference the assembly, but if you are inheriting from other controls that utilize .ascx files, your kinda stuck with them.
One way of handling it is to use the file linking capabilities in Visual Studio (Add Existing File, click the down arrow, choose link option) to share the same physical file between projects within the same solution. This is not ideal simply because you have to make sure that the ascx files are copied to both sites prior to deployment (I've done it with a post-build script before), but there is a lot that can still be pretty fragile.
Another option that is more technically complex, but probably a "better" way of handling it would be to use a Virtual Path Provider to do the work for you. Here is an article which talks about using Virtual Path Providers to do the sort of thing you are wanting to do.
Start a new class library project, reference that project in both your site projects, then pull out the common controls and code into the library project.
Like mentioned you could put the files in a VPP directory in the live environment and that way only have to copy ASCX-files to one folder for a two-site-code-infront-update. Code-behind updates would need the DLL built and overwritten for both sites though.
If you are using SVN in your development environment you could also setup a svn:external linked folder from one of the projects and that way only have the code and it's revision history in one repository.
What are the suggested methods for using javascript files with MOSS 2007 ? in the 12 Hive somewhere or directly in the site's virtual directory in a scripts directory ? Or possibly as a embedded resource in a webpart ?
Personally, it all depends on what purpose the JavaScript files are going to serve. If they're going to be shared amongst multiple components then I would suggest placing them in the 12-hive. If however, they're going to be isolated to a single component - a web part for instance - then embedding them as a resource will work as well.
This article has a discussion about best practices for the deployment of web part resources which you may find useful, in concludes:
In this post, you have seen how to
both link to and embed Web Part
resources. Each has its own
advantages and disadvantages, mostly
boiling down to whether you need to
maintain the resource separately from
the Web Part. In both cases, the
resource file can be cached, so there
is little performance difference from
each option. Feel free to use one of
these two approaches for your next web
part.
I suggest you deploy these scripts in the 12-hive.
Having them in the 12-hive ensures fast access, which is important for scripts. You risk page rendering lag otherwise. More admin overhead as you must deploy them on all frontend webservers in your farm.
Having them in the content DB makes them more centrally manageble at the const of performance.
Mine where added to Sharepoint Designer in a folder I called "scripts" I think that puts it in the database.
We use a seperate scripts directory.
We use a similiar approach to images.
This allows us to share images and Javascript easily between our webparts, and custom applications which are available though Sharepoint.
This should also mean they're only downloaded once, and cached.
We use resx files to localize our web applications. We usually create local resx files (that map to a specific page) when only one page uses a certain phrase, and a global resx file when more than one page needs the phrase.
But the good thing about global resx files is that they are a class, and you can call the phrases like you call properties of a class:
Resource.UI.iNotFound
So I was thinking - why have local resx files at all? why not use one global resx file for the whole application, and that way avoid runtime errors from calling non-existent phrases?
I'm sure there's a good answer for that, I just don't know what it is....
I kept on looking for guidelines, and found this in MSDN:
Choosing Between Global and Local Resource Files
You can use any combination of global
and local resource files in the Web
application. Generally, you add
resources to a global resource file
when you want to share the resources
between pages. Resources in global
resource files are also strongly typed
for when you want to access the files
programmatically.
However, global resource files can
become large, if you store all
localized resources in them. Global
resource files can also be more
difficult to manage, if more than one
developer is working on different
pages but in a single resource file.
Local resource files make it easier to
manage resources for a single ASP.NET
Web page. But you cannot share
resources between pages. Additionally,
you might create lots of local
resource files, if you have many pages
that must be localized into many
languages. If sites are large with
many folders and languages, local
resources can quickly expand the
number of assemblies in the
application domain.
When you make a change to a default resource file,
either local or global, ASP.NET
recompiles the resources and restarts
the ASP.NET application. This can
affect the overall performance of your
site. If you add satellite resource
files, it does not cause a
recompilation of resources, but the
ASP.NET application will restart.
So it seems that it's really up to the programming team to weigh the pros and cons of each method and choose what's good for them.
Joe90 - I have to say that in my experience, I can't agree that managing lots of local resource files scattered throughout your whole project is easier than managing one, global resource file. There is nothing to stop repetition of the same translations again and again and they are very difficult to track down. Access to the Global resource file is very easy to co-ordinate within a team and multiple users can see at a glance whether their required translation has already been done.
I started off with exactly the same policy as Lea - i.e. start with a local resource file and then move this to a global resource file if it was referenced more than once. This soon became loads of hassle to manage and I've since moved to using global resource files every time now.
There don't seem to be any clear guidelines by Microsoft as to what the best practice is, or even, how the two methods are implemented so that we can hazard a guess!
I'm guessing the comparison/payoff is that local resource files only require a recompile of the file they relate to, whereas changing a global resource file seems to require a recompile of the whole web site - with an inherent loss of session state etc. so requires taking the site offline during the update to be safe.
I have a development team of at least 10 developers on a single product and we are using one global resx for each site.
The problem with merging this big resx file should in my opinion not be a problem.
If you have 10 developers who themselves set the language on the site, how do you get a uniform way to express themselves on the site? Developers often tend to be good at code and not the grammatical expression. (I am a developer myself.)
A language expert should edit resx file and lock it for the developers!
A Global Resource file is the best method for translation. The key is use a naming convention, like page name abbreviations for the first few letters of a string name so that you can locate resources per web page basis easily. Trying to reuse many phrases across multiple pages will cause more confusion for the translators.
You can define resuable phrases as much or as little as you want, like Yes, No, BTN_OK, BTN_Cancel, QTN_AreYouSure, etc by using a lack of page naming convention (no page name abbreviations for the first few letters). The majority of your lines of RESX will be specific to each page and you should not focus on trying to reuse as much as possible. Changing one phrase across the entire file can be carefully done in minutes using text find/replace when needed.