Latest Entries
Build your own Whois Lookup with ASP.NET and jQuery
calendar_today 14 April 2009 22:39
IP addresses can reveal a lot about your web visitors. For an ecommerce site, the owner or registrant of the visitor's IP address can be very useful information. You could paste each visitor IP address into one of the many free IP Lookup sites available, but that can be time-consuming and tedious. Or you could build your own lookup. This article shows how this can be done pretty quickly.
Lazy Loading jQuery Tabs with ASP.NET
calendar_today 02 March 2009 07:30
This article looks at efficient use of jQuery tabs when displaying data. Specifically, it covers how to lazy-load data, so that it is only accessed and displayed if the tab is clicked.
Persisting the position of jQuery Draggables in ASP.NET
calendar_today 04 February 2009 22:29
It was bound to happen - you knock up an article on jQuery draggables one day, and the next, someone like Jim ;-) comes along and asks about persisting the position of the dragged item across Postbacks, or even sessions. I suppose it's my fault - I mentioned using draggables in a previous life in the context of saving the position, so it's only fair I share how that's done.
Experimenting with jQuery Draggables and ASP.NET
calendar_today 01 February 2009 08:12
One of the keystones of modern AJAX-enabled web sites is Drag and Drop. This article looks at the current state of Draggables that form part of the jQuery UI Library.
Preventing duplicate User Names with ASP.NET and jQuery
calendar_today 24 January 2009 18:18
It's a common problem: you have a registration form, but you want to prevent user names or other values from being used more than once. You need a user-friendly way to prevent duplicate values being submitted. This is where the simplicity of jQuery excels.
Ajax with Classic ASP using jQuery
calendar_today 17 January 2009 23:13
My simple article on Ajax with Classic ASP is one of the most popular on this site. So I thought it's about time I updated it to show how to use jQuery to Ajaxify a Classic ASP page. Since I did that, the jQuery version became even more popular but needed to be brought up to date. This latest version uses a couple of suggestions that have been provided by commentors to improve the code. I have also added a download which contains all the code needed to run the samples.
Cascading DropDownLists with jQuery and ASP.NET
calendar_today 13 January 2009 08:47
Cascading DropDownLists or dependent dropdowns are the signature dish for AJAX applications. I spent quite a while fiddling to try to get some to work, before stumbling across a life-saving jQuery plugin that makes working with DropDownLists on the client-side a breeze. This article shows how it all works, and makes use of the WebService I introduced in my previous jQuery article.
Handling JSON Arrays returned from ASP.NET Web Services with jQuery
calendar_today 10 January 2009 09:09
There appear to be many articles showing how to use jQuery with ASP.NET Web Services around, but the vast majority of them illustrate the use of PageMethods that return a single value - typically "Hello World!" or the current date and time. Not much use in the real world, where you may more often need to call a service that returns a collection of complex objects. Here are a couple of examples that look at playing with more than just simple values.
Upload and Crop Images with jQuery, JCrop and ASP.NET
calendar_today 05 January 2009 13:54
I got given jQuery In Action for Christmas. By nature, I'm kind of a late adopter, and I'm already regretting this fact. jQuery has been around for some time, and I wished I had looked at it sooner. It's a fantastic library that really simplifies Javascript development, and is already attracting a goodly number of plug-ins. JCrop is one such, and while it hasn't yet reached version 1.0, it is remarkably easy to use as a web based image cropper. Here's how to put jQuery, JCrop and a FileUpload control together to allow users to upload images and crop them.
Create a Google Site Map with ASP.NET
calendar_today 31 December 2008 09:32
Over Christmas, I had a bit of spare time, so I decided to add some functionality to this site. One of the things that I added was the ability for people to post comments about specific articles, and you will see that a form has been added at the end of this article. The other thing I have been meaning to get round to is to add a Google Site Map. I believe I have created my site to be as friendly to Google's bots as possible, but there is no harm in submitting a site map to guarantee that Google knows about all the pages I want indexed.
A DataBound Javascript News Ticker for ASP.NET
calendar_today 25 December 2008 14:18
It's funny how requirements come along like buses in the ASP.NET forums - you suddenly get the same thing asked for by two or more people in quick succession. Recently, a couple of people asked for help creating a Javascript ticker, like the one at the top of the BBC News site, which displays a selected number of headlines drawn from a database. I had adapted the code from the BBC site to create a similar widget that displayed the most recent threads in a message board on an old Classic ASP site some time ago. It's about time I dusted it off and updated it for use in an ASP.NET application.
MS Access Date and Time with ASP.NET
calendar_today 13 December 2008 21:47
Getting odd results and unexpected errors when working with Dates and Times in Access through ASP.NET is a common problem. Here's an overview of the Access DateTime data type, and some resolutions to the more frequently encountered errors.
Delegates, Anonymous Methods and Lambda Expressions in C#
calendar_today 07 December 2008 19:33
Delegates in C# cause a fair amount of confusion, but with the introduction of LINQ to SQL and the profilic use of the Lambda Expression operator (=>) that it has foisted on an unprepared batch of beginners, an understanding of how these two items are related, together with Anonymous Methods becomes more important. Most definitions of Delegates that you find start off with comparing them to "function pointers in C or C++", which is great if you ever worked with those languages and understood them, but not helpful to new programmers. Here's my attempt at simplifying the various concepts.
Microsoft Chart Controls For ASP.NET
calendar_today 28 November 2008 13:38
Many times, I have seen questions about where to obtain Charting controls for ASP.NET web applications, and until recently, the answer has always been to have a look at many of the third party offers that are available from the leading control development companies. That is until Microsoft released their Chart Controls for both Windows Forms and ASP.NET to work with .Net 3.5 SP1.
iTextSharp - Page Layout with Columns
calendar_today 24 November 2008 07:41
I have now covered many of the basics involved in generating PDF files from ASP.NET using iTextSharp in the series of articles listed below. This article will look at additional ways to provide formatting to documents through the use of columns.
iTextSharp - Drawing shapes and Graphics
calendar_today 17 November 2008 12:30
The previous iTextSharp article looked at bringing images into a PDF file and working with them. Sometimes, however, you may want to draw shapes and lines within the PDF and not rely on images. iTextSharp includes a lot of functionality that covers simple drawing to quite complex shapes. This article gets you started. Previous articles are listed below:
iTextSharp - Working with images
calendar_today 07 November 2008 23:00
The seventh article in my iTextSharp series looks at working with images. This article builds on the previous six which are listed below.
iTextSharp - Introducing Tables
calendar_today 03 November 2008 07:34
Tables will probably be one of the most used elements in PDFs generated from ASP.NET applications to provide the structure for documents such as orders and invoices. This overview is not an exhaustive examination of tables, but provides an introduction to working with them through iTextSharp, and builds on the previous articles in this iTextSharp series:
Book Review - Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# and VB
calendar_today 26 October 2008 11:01
Over the years, I have picked up and read many Beginners books that attempt to get someone started on the road to building web sites with ASP.NET. Nearly all of them assumed that their readers know more than they might. Some of them seem to assume that all readers are upgrading from one version of the .NET framework to another, while others assume that you already know about core web development technologies such as HTML, CSS, C# or VB etc. I well remember being frustrated with my first book, in that it didn't give me enough basic information to get started with web development, let alone web development with ASP.NET. Now, up steps Imar Spaanjaars, with his effort: Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# and VB (Wiley/Wrox, ISBN: 978-0-470-18759-3).
iTextSharp - Links and Bookmarks
calendar_today 23 October 2008 21:51
Interactivity within PDF documents is enabled though Anchors (links) and Bookmarks. Following earlier articles in my iTextSharp series, this particular contribution will introduce the basics of linking and bookmarking PDF documents created via iTextSharp. You may want to review earlier articles in this series, if you haven't already done so.
