Fredrik von Werder

EPiServer ActionWindow Plugin - set bigger window size

2012-01-10T02:18:00.000-08:00

A neat script to set a larger window area for the EpiServer CMS 6 plugin iframe.

Works in both Mozilla and Internet Explorer.

Place this script in the plugin ascx:

<script type="text/javascript">
    if (window.parent != null && window.parent.parent != null && window.parent.parent.document.all['epCustomDIV'] != null) {
        window.parent.parent.document.all['epCustomDIV'].style.width = '500px';
    }
</script>

BF3Stats playerupdate API request

2011-11-21T14:49:00.000-08:00

The Battlefield 3 game is really awesome, and why not add some stats to your site. Go to BF3stats.com and read about the API.

I had some trouble with the API request against the bf3stats.com/api and I thought I just should spare you that struggle with showing you my test console app. The problem was making a Signature (sig) without using the UTF8 encoding, just do it directly on the byte[] array.

Just switch the API keys to your own, and a player you want to update...

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Net;
using System.IO;
using System.Web;
using System.Collections;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Security.Cryptography;

namespace BF3
{
    class Program
    {
        static string BF3APIIdent = "xxxx";
        static string BF3APIKey = "xxxx";
       
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(updatePlayer("pc", "PlayersName"));
            Console.ReadLine();
        }

        public static string MakeUrlSafe(string code)
        {
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(code))
                return string.Empty;

            return code.Replace("+", "-").Replace("/", "_").Replace("=", string.Empty);
        }

        public static string updatePlayer(string platform, string name)
        {
            Hashtable data = new Hashtable();
            data["ident"] = BF3APIIdent;
            data["time"] = time();
            data["player"] = name;

            return getAPIDataSigned("playerupdate", platform, data);
        }

        public static string getAPIDataSigned(string type, string platform, Hashtable data)
        {
            System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer oSerializer = new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer();
            string sJSON = oSerializer.Serialize(data);
            string bdata = MakeUrlSafe(Base64Encode(sJSON));
            
            string sig = Sig(bdata, BF3APIKey);
            string postdata = "data=" + bdata + "&sig=" + sig;

            return BF3Request(postdata, "http://api.bf3stats.com/" + platform + "/" + type + "/");
        }

        static string BF3Request(string data, string url)
        {
            System.Net.ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = false; //IMPORTANT otherwise 417 Exception

            WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(url);
            request.Method = "POST";
           
            string postData = data;
            byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(postData);
            request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
            request.ContentLength = byteArray.Length;
            Stream dataStream = request.GetRequestStream();
            dataStream.Write(byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
            dataStream.Close();
            WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
            dataStream = response.GetResponseStream();
            StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(dataStream);
            string item = reader.ReadToEnd();
            reader.Close();
            dataStream.Close();
            response.Close();
            return item;
        }

        public static string Sig(string data, string key)
        {
            var hmacsha256 = new HMACSHA256(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key));
            var bytes = hmacsha256.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(data));
            return MakeUrlSafe(Base64Encode(bytes));
        }

        public static string Base64Encode(string data)
        {
            byte[] encData_byte = new byte[data.Length];
            encData_byte = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(data);
            string encodedData = Convert.ToBase64String(encData_byte);
            return encodedData;
        }

        public static string Base64Encode(byte[] encData_byte)
        {
            return Convert.ToBase64String(encData_byte);
        }

        private static long time()
        {
            return time(DateTime.UtcNow);
        }

        private static long time(DateTime time)
        {
            DateTime unixEpoch = new DateTime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0);
            TimeSpan span = time.Subtract(unixEpoch);

            return (long)span.TotalSeconds;
        }
    }
}

How to get rid of the ugly frame border in IE 9

2011-11-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

I have a forum with a frameset (yes I know its old fashion but it works perfectly well).

And there is a chat frameset with 2 frames.

And in Internet Explorer 9 there have always been an ugly border between the two frames, despite have set values frameborder="0" and framespacing="0" and border="0".

I tried many times with all kinds of stuff, but then I found a way...

Here is what made my border disappear (the magic in bold text):

<frameset rows="*,127" border="0" framespacing="0" frameBorder="0">
<frame src="chat.aspx#Down" scrolling="auto" name="chat" frameBorder="0" border="0" framespacing="0" style="border:none;height:101%;">
<frame src="chat_input.aspx" scrolling="auto" name="chat_input" frameBorder="0" border="0" framespacing="0" style="border:none">
</frameset >

I think its the 101% height that places the border out of visibility, so it's more of a workaround... but it works! :-)

Episerver CMS and Commerce - my notes

2011-10-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

CurrentPage missing on product pages
You assign a EPiServer page to act as a product template, but, in the template file the CurrentPage is a "faked" page with its ID coming from the Commerce custom page provider. This means that you can not use Epi properties on that page, and that is really bad. If anyone discover a way to get the real CurrentPage, I would be glad to hear about it.

License configuration on servers without manager (load balanced environment)
It's a little tricky to set up the web front servers, I had a annoying bad license request, even though I put the Epi-Commerce license in the www root of the site. After some trial and error I found out that copying the whole \Shared\Licensing\ folder into each server at same place (or path configured in web config's mediachase.license part) and do not forget to give app pool identity read access to that path.

Excluding a catalog node from search
There is no method in API to exclude a catalog, so you have to do it with the SqlWhereClause, like this:

var pars = new CatalogSearchParameters();

pars.SqlWhereClause = " [CatalogEntry].CatalogEntryId not in (select NodeEntryRelation.CatalogEntryId from NodeEntryRelation " +
" inner join CatalogNode on NodeEntryRelation.CatalogNodeId = CatalogNode.CatalogNodeId and NodeEntryRelation.CatalogId " +
" in (select * from @Catalogs_temp) and CatalogNode.Code = '" + catalogCodeToExclude + "') ";

Episerver and AD authenticate using LDAP

2011-09-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

Authenticating using membership provider for Active Directory in EPiServer CMS 6 is not just a straight forward road. The main thing is that you first believe that opening port 389 is enough on the AD server, because your found it on some blog and you tried with Softerra ldap browser and it worked just fine.

But, the ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider needs two ports to be opened, port 389 and 445.

Then life becomes much easier...

And of course
LDAP string in connectionstring must have a valid correct path, for example:
LDAP://mail.company.se/OU=Users,DC=company,DC=local

But you can easily find that out in the Softerra for example when successfully connected

And the settings in Softerra that worked for me was on the Credentials tab, select Other credentials and the "GSS negotiate" and fill the login fields.

My tour dates

2011-07-03T13:18:00.001-07:00

Gigs are with the Beat from Palookaville and in Stockholm (Sweden) if nothing else stated.

2012

11 februari - Stampen
14 april - Helsingfors (w Sven Zetterberg)
28 april - Stampen
12 maj - privat
26 maj - Mönsterås (w Sven Zetterberg)
28 aug - Stockholm (w Sven Zetterberg)

2013

2-5 februari - Spain (Rockin' Race Jamboree festival in Spain www.rockinrace.com)
4-5 juli - Switzerland (Hangar Rockin´)

Homepages:
Stampen

EPiServer CMS bug when upgrading with deployment center

2011-05-09T00:37:00.000-07:00

Error described:

At C:\Program Files (x86)\EPiServer\CMS\6.0.530.0\Upgrade\System Scripts\Upgrade Site (SqlServer).ps1:361 char:29

+ $newUiUrl = $uiUrl.Replace <<<< ($uiPath, $uiPath+"/CMS")

System.Management.Automation.ParentContainsErrorRecordException: Cannot convert argument "1", with value: "/CMS", for "Replace" to type "System.Char": "Cannot convert value "/CMS" to type "System.Char". Error: "Strängen måste vara exakt ett tecken lång.""

The problem is that the site had asolute url for ui in sitesettigns, because of ui running under SSL.

Changing the value to ~ui solved the problem.

Conclusion, you can not upgrade sites using https with their tool, without manually fixing this

Entity Framework missing in Visual Studio 2010

2010-10-11T06:29:00.000-07:00

I could not find the template for Entity Framework (AdoNetEntityDataModelCSharp.zip) package in my Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate installation.

So I looked for a solution but could not find one that worked for me so I installed it again on another computer, and therefor (dont know how) I got the correct zip file for csharp (C#) templates.

So, for all of you poor Visual Studio users looking for Entity Framework EF, here is the actual zip file that is needed for Visual Studio 2010

put it in the correct place, default path is something like:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Data\1033

Download Entity Data Model template zip file here (link broken, working on a new file): ~~vs2010_entity_data_framework_itemtemplate.zip~~

EPiServer 6 problems with configuration

2010-09-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

Some errors that I ran into when setting up EPiServer CMS 6 on my Vista with IIS 7.0 running in .NET 4, and how to get it working

ICallbackEVentHandler error
In web.config under system.web / pages , set clientIDMode="AutoID"

Can not see wastebasket or root page
Occurs when installing the package.
Change the page types sysroot and sysRecycleBin settings to correct path to the .aspx file

Lots of javascript errors in edit and admin mode
In web.config, set access rights for location path="Util", for example set same roles as for the edit path, usually WebAdmin, WebEditors, Adminstrators

EpiServer - simple plugin to lookup page from PageFiles ID

2010-08-17T03:29:00.000-07:00

Each page in EPiServer has a directory in VPP PageFiles (created when first uploading a file to it) directory.

For example: \\myFileServer\VPP\PageFiles\35566\my_pic.gif

However, the ID after PageFiles has nothing to do with the page id in EPiserver.

You can get the ID from the page using the CurrentPage["PageFolderID"]

Here is a very simple and small plug-in (action window section) to be used to quickly find the page for a specific PageFiles ID. (you have to provide your own loading.gif though)

Markup:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="FindPageFromPagefileId.ascx.cs"
    Inherits="Additions.Plugins.FindPageFromPagefileId" %>

<h1>
   Find page from pagefile ID</h1>
<br />
<p>
    PageFiles ID</p>
    <asp:TextBox runat="server" Width="90"  ID="txtPageFileID"></asp:TextBox>

    <asp:Button runat="server" ID="Button1" Text="Leta sida"
    onclick="Button1_Click" OnClientClick="loading()" />

    <br /><br />
    <div id="loader" style="display:none;">
        <image src="/UI/Images/loading.gif" />
    </div>
    <br />
    <asp:HyperLink runat="server" ID="linkPage"></asp:HyperLink>
    <p>
    <asp:Label runat="server" ID="msg" ForeColor="Red"></asp:Label>
    </p>

    <script type="text/javascript">
        function loading() {
            document.getElementById('loader').style.display = "block";
        }
    </script>

And codebehind:

[GuiPlugIn(DisplayName = "Find page from pagefiles ID", Area = PlugInArea.ActionWindow,

Description = "Find page using specific pagefiles ID",

Url = "~/UI/Additions/Plugins/FindPageFromPagefileId.ascx", SortIndex = 60)]
    public partial class FindPageFromPagefileId : System.Web.UI.UserControl
    {
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
        }
        protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            if (txtPageFileID.Text.Length < 1)
                return;
            IList<PageReference> pages = DataFactory.Instance.GetDescendents(PageReference.RootPage);
            linkPage.Text = "<span style=\"color:red\">Page could not be found</span>";
            linkPage.NavigateUrl = "";

            foreach (PageReference pr in pages)
            {
                PageData pd = DataFactory.Instance.GetPage(pr);

                if (pd != null && pd.Property["PageFolderID"] != null)
                {
                    object pagefilesID = pd.Property["PageFolderID"].Value;

                    if (pagefilesID != null && pagefilesID.ToString() == txtPageFileID.Text)
                    {
                        linkPage.Text = "&raquo; " + pd.PageName;
                        linkPage.NavigateUrl = pd.LinkURL;
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

EPiServer 6 does not support HTML 5

2010-06-09T04:13:00.000-07:00

Just recently I was working in a project as Epi developer for a big site in Sweden.

We decided to go for HTML 5 since it is the upcoming version of html, xhtml seemed a little too old to us.

However, EPiServer CMS 6 does not support HTML 5, you can not validate a site built with html 5, it is not possible.

And how is that?

It is because EPiServer has its own parser that goes through the output when rendering the page, and the parser is designed to follow the XHTML standards only.

And what happens with HTML5 then?

The parser moves the <noscript> tag and put it outside the "head" tag, and before the "body" tag. That is not legal in html 5, where you want it to reside in the "head".

And furthermore I have spoken to EPi support and they say it will not be fixed in any way until a totally new version of EPi comes, ie EPi 7 I guess.

I thought that they might have added some flag in the site settings in episerver.config that told the parser what markup standard to follow, but it was not something that they would spend hours on to fix.

Another sign of non-html5-compatibility in EPiServer 6 is that the DOCTYPE is messed up:

The correct:
<!DOCTYPE html>
becomes:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "" "">
so we had to make a httpmodule to replace the doctype text.

Conclusion
Well, sadly, you can never release a html 5 site that validates, using the EPiServer CMS product.

Never use Episerver controls when listing pages without group Everyone

2010-06-07T05:19:00.000-07:00

Was really confused why the list was empty, but realized after a while that the Episerver control PageList automatically removes all pages that the users have no right to see.

Pretty obvious you might think, but since it is common practice to use EPi pages as dataholders, often in a hidden [Data] structure outside the StartPage tree, and those pages lacks the Everyone (Read), the developers must remember to use a regular asp Repeater instead.

The methods DataFactory.Instance.GetPage() and GetChildren() always return everything without checking any permissions, well thats old information by now (from EPi 5)

It would be nice if Episerver added some logic to the controls so that you could tell the PageList-control the authorization behaviour needed.

Use the old editor in EPiServer CMS 6 instead of TinyMCE

2010-05-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

Since the TinyMCE editor cannot use the Edit Menu Name functionality for css classes, there are reasons to use the legacy editor instead. Another reason is that "paste unformatted.." is moved to a button wich opens up a dialog where you can paste your formatted text. A little bit annoying I think.

Well, it is easy to get back to "the good old days" :-)

In web.config there is a section for this already implemented.

Just uncomment the second part.

<!-- Uncomment the following two lines to get legacy editor in edit mode for PropertyXhtmlString and PropertyLongString-->
<!--<register type="EPiServer.SpecializedProperties.PropertyXhtmlString, EPiServer" 
mappedType="EPiServer.Web.PropertyControls.LegacyPropertyXhtmlStringControl, EPiServer" />
    <register type="EPiServer.Core.PropertyLongString, EPiServer" 
mappedType="EPiServer.Web.PropertyControls.LegacyPropertyXhtmlStringControl, EPiServer" />-->

Write to the VPP file system in EPiServer CMS 6

2010-04-23T01:34:00.000-07:00

A simple method to write to EPiServer's VPP (VirtualPathProvider).

Note that it is the Native provider (EPiServer.Web.Hosting.VirtualPathNativeProvider), not the Versioning.

The method is taking a folder value folder and builds up the path, and is just using the page ID for filename 370.xml. If the file does not exist, the file is created.

public static void UpdateRssContent()
{
        PageData rootPage = DataFactory.Instance.GetPage(Settings.TrafficEventContainer);

        string filename = "/" + rootPage.PageLink.ID.ToString() + ".xml";
        string path = Settings.TrafficEventRssPath.Trim('/'); // folder like: RSS
        VirtualPathUnifiedProvider provider = (VirtualPathUnifiedProvider)VirtualPathHandler.GetProvider("SiteGlobalFiles");
        UnifiedDirectory dir = provider.GetDirectory(provider.VirtualPathRoot + "/" + path) as UnifiedDirectory;
        string fullpath = provider.VirtualPathRoot + "/" + path + filename;
        UnifiedFile rss = provider.GetFile(fullpath) as UnifiedFile;

        if (!provider.FileExists(fullpath))
                dir.CreateFile(fullpath);

        Stream filestr = rss.Open(FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite);

        MemoryStream outstream = TrafficEventUtils.GetRssDocument(DataFactory.Instance.GetPage(Settings.TrafficEventContainer));
        filestr.Write(outstream.GetBuffer(), 0, (int)outstream.Length);

        Debug.Write(Encoding.UTF8.GetString((outstream.ToArray())));
        filestr.Close();
}

EPiServer tab menu with multiple languages

2010-04-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you want to render a menu with multiple language links, depending on the pages' lang setting, typical example is a tab menu in the master language (in this case Swedish 'sv') and the last tab in English for international visitors, the english page is only available in english and we do dont want it to be a link with the master language. And all pages comes form the same PageDataCollection, that is the problem actually, mixing cultures in the same menulist.

Tab menu markup:

<EPiServer:MenuList runat="server" id="Menu">
    <HeaderTemplate>
        <nav id="tabMenu">
            <ul>
    </HeaderTemplate>
    <ItemTemplate>
                <li><%# GetLink(Container.CurrentPage, "", "span") %></li>
    </ItemTemplate>
    <SelectedTemplate>
                <li class="current"><%# GetLink(Container.CurrentPage, "", "span") %></li>
    </SelectedTemplate>
    <FooterTemplate>
            </ul>
        </nav>
    </FooterTemplate>
</EPiServer:MenuList>

The tab menu .cs:

public partial class TabMenu : UserControlsBase
    {
        protected override void OnLoad(System.EventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnLoad(e);

            CultureInfo ci = EPiServer.Globalization.ContentLanguage.PreferredCulture;
            EPiServer.Globalization.ContentLanguage.PreferredCulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("sv");
            

            Menu.PageLink = PageReference.StartPage;
            Menu.PageLoader.GetChildrenCallback = new HierarchicalPageLoader.GetChildrenMethod(LoadChildren);
            Menu.DataBind();

            EPiServer.Globalization.ContentLanguage.PreferredCulture = ci;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates the collection for the main menu, adding the startpage
        /// </summary>
        private PageDataCollection LoadChildren(PageReference pageLink)
        {
            PageDataCollection pages = DataFactory.Instance.GetChildren(pageLink, LanguageSelector.AutoDetect(true));
            return pages;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Gets or sets the MenuList for this control
        /// </summary>
        public MenuList MenuList
        {
            get { return Menu; }
            set { Menu = value; }
        }

    }

The method rendering the links:

        protected string GetLink(PageData pd, string CssClass, string WrapperElement)
        {
            string ahref = @"<a href=""{0}""{1}{3}>{5}<{4}>{2}</{4}>{6}</a>";
            string title = string.Empty;
            string classe = string.Empty;
            string wrapper = "span";
            string current_element1 = string.Empty;
            string current_element2 = string.Empty;

            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(CssClass))
                classe = " class=\"" + CssClass + "\"";

            if (em.IsValue(pd, "TitleText"))
                title = " title=\"" + pd["TitleText"] + "\"";

            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(WrapperElement))
            {
                wrapper = WrapperElement;

                current_element1 = "<" + wrapper + ">";
                current_element2 = "</" + wrapper + ">";
            }

            string url = pd.LinkURL;
            PageData p2 = DataFactory.Instance.GetPage(pd.PageLink, LanguageSelector.Fallback("en", true));

            CultureInfo ci = EPiServer.Globalization.ContentLanguage.PreferredCulture;

            if (p2 != null && p2.LanguageBranch.Contains("en"))
            {
                EPiServer.Globalization.ContentLanguage.PreferredCulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en");
                url = p2.LinkURL;
                EPiServer.Globalization.ContentLanguage.PreferredCulture = ci;
            }

            return string.Format(ahref, url, title, pd.PageName, classe, wrapper, current_element1, current_element2);
        }

EPiServer CMS 6 - custom property with radiobuttonlist

2010-04-14T05:01:00.000-07:00

A simple class for using a radiobuttonlist in a custom property in EPiserver CMS 6.

[Serializable]
    [PageDefinitionTypePlugIn(DisplayName = "Traffic status")]
    public class TrafficStatusProperty : EPiServer.Core.PropertyString
    {
        public override IPropertyControl CreatePropertyControl()
        {
            return new TrafficStatusPropertyType();
        }

        public class TrafficStatusPropertyType : EPiServer.Web.PropertyControls.PropertyStringControl
        {
            RadioButtonList inputControl;

            protected override void SetupEditControls()
            {
                base.SetupEditControls();

                TextBox ctrl = this.EditControl;
                ctrl.Attributes.Add("style", "display:none");

                inputControl = new RadioButtonList();
          
                inputControl.Items.Add(new ListItem(Constants.STATUSNAME_GOOD));
                inputControl.Items.Add(new ListItem(Constants.STATUSNAME_MINOR));
                inputControl.Items.Add(new ListItem(Constants.STATUSTEXT_MAJOR));
                inputControl.SelectedValue = this.PropertyData.Value as string;

                this.EditControl.Parent.Controls.Add(inputControl);
            }

            public override void ApplyEditChanges()
            {
                if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(inputControl.SelectedItem.Value))
                {
                    SetValue(inputControl.SelectedItem.Value);
                }
            } 
        }
    }

EPiServer custom property example

2010-02-19T04:02:00.000-08:00

Here is a brief example of a custom property in EPiServer CMS. Not a tutorial, just a code snippet to begin with.

This one have a simpe textbox ("PropertyControls.PropertyTextBoxControlBase"), but view your intellisense and you see you can use a bunch of other types, se screenshot.

This also have a button "..." which opens a new dialog where you do your interface for client to pick the value.

And then that dialog uses window.opener to call a function defined in the codebehind to set the value for the property:

 <script type="text/javascript">  
 function sendBack()  
 {  
   window.opener.addValue(document.getElementById('sel_value').value);  
   window.close();  
 }  
 </script>

As easy as it can be :-)

Class:

 using System;  
 using System.Collections.Generic;  
 using System.Text;  
 using EPiServer;  
 using EPiServer.Core;  
 using EPiServer.DataAbstraction;  
 using EPiServer.PlugIn;  
 using EPiServer.Web.PropertyControls;  
 using System.Web.UI.WebControls;  
 using System.Web.UI;  
 using System.Drawing;  
 using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;  
 namespace EPiServer.Templates.Main.Library  
 {  
   [Serializable]  
   [PageDefinitionTypePlugIn(DisplayName = "P360 process selector")]  
   public class EdokSelectorProperty : EPiServer.Core.PropertyString  
   {  
     public override IPropertyControl CreatePropertyControl()  
     {  
       return new EdokSelectorPropertyType();  
     }  
   }  
   public class EdokSelectorPropertyType : EPiServer.Web.PropertyControls.PropertyTextBoxControlBase  
   {  
     protected override void SetupEditControls()  
     {  
       base.SetupEditControls();   
       TextBox inputControl = this.EditControl;  
       //inputControl.Width = 100;  
       inputControl.Attributes.Add("class", "episize240");  
       inputControl.Attributes.Add("onfocus", "blur();");  
       inputControl.Text = this.PropertyData.Value as string;  
       Control ctrl = inputControl.Parent;  
       Literal js = new Literal();  
       js.Text = "<script>function addValue(val){ document.getElementById('" + inputControl.ClientID + "').value = val;}</script>";  
       ctrl.Controls.Add(js);  
       HtmlButton btn = new HtmlButton();  
       btn.InnerText = "...";  
       btn.Attributes.Add("onclick", "window.open('/Templates/Main/Pages/EdokSelectorControl.aspx?selectedvalue=' + document.getElementById('" + inputControl.ClientID + "').value,'namn','top=300,left=300,width=450,height=400,resizable=yes,status=yes');");  
       ctrl.Controls.Add(btn);  
     }  
   }  
 }

Looping through xml building a TreeView using C#

2010-02-16T02:18:00.001-08:00

This code is for iterating the xml all the way down, this is for a 4 level deep structure but can easily be adjusted, to insert it into a TreeView, in .Net.

Xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<data>
  <process name="Process_1">
    <processPart name="Part11" />
    <processPart name="part12">
      <workflow name="WorkFlowz111" />
    </processPart>
  </process>
  <process name="Process_2">
      <processPart name="Part21" />
      <processPart name="part22">        
        <workflow name="WorkFlowz221" />
      </processPart>    
  </process>
</data>

Methods:

 public TreeView GetTreeViewFromXML(TreeView tree)  
 {  
   TreeNode node1 = new TreeNode("Processer","");  
   node1.Expanded = false;  
   XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument();  
   xDoc.LoadXml(ep.GetProcessStructureXML());  
   tree.Nodes.Add(GetTreeNodeFromSiblings(xDoc.ChildNodes[1], node1, selectedvalue));  
   return tree;  
 }  
 private TreeNode GetTreeNodeFromSiblings(XmlNode next, TreeNode node)  
 {  
   foreach (XmlNode nod in next.ChildNodes)  
   {  
     TreeNode tn = new TreeNode(nod.Attributes["name"].Value,  
       nod.Attributes["name"].Value);  
     if (nod.HasChildNodes)  
       node.ChildNodes.Add(GetTreeNodeFromSiblings(nod.CloneNode(true), tn));  
     else  
       node.ChildNodes.Add(tn);  
   }  
   return node;  
 }

And for the aspx codebehind C#, need to select current value and expand the tree down that path.

 protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)  
 {  
   if (!IsPostBack)  
   {  
     Tree1 = em.GetTreeViewFromXML(Tree1);  
     if (Request["selectedvalue"] != null)  
     {  
       selectedvaluepath = Request["selectedvalue"].ToString();  
       sel_value.Value = selectedvaluepath;  
       TreeNode noded = Tree1.FindNode(selectedvaluepath);  
       if (noded != null)  
       {  
         noded.Select();  
         noded.Expanded = false;  
         TreeNode parent = ExpandParent(noded);  
         TreeNode parent2 = ExpandParent(parent);  
         TreeNode parent3 = ExpandParent(parent2);  
         btnSendBack.Disabled = false;  
       }  
     }  
   }  
 }  
 protected void tree_selected(object sender, EventArgs e)  
 {  
   btnSendBack.Disabled = true;  
   string t = Tree1.SelectedNode.ValuePath;  
   if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(t))  
   {  
     sel_value.Value = t;  
     btnSendBack.Disabled = false;  
   }  
 }  
 private TreeNode ExpandParent(TreeNode node)  
 {  
   if (node == null)  
     return null;  
   TreeNode parent = node.Parent;  
   if (parent != null)  
   {  
     parent.Expanded = true;  
     return parent;  
   }  
   return null;  
 }

Traverse xml into dropdown list using C#

2010-02-16T00:18:00.000-08:00

This code is for iterating the xml all the way down, to insert it into a dropdown list, with the level indent. Very basic, just the core functionality.

A couple of methods needed. Some stuff are not included, like fetching the XML.

Xml looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<data>
  <process name="Process_1">
    <processPart name="Part11" />
    <processPart name="part12">
      <workflow name="WorkFlowz111" />
    </processPart>
  </process>
  <process name="Process_2">
      <processPart name="Part21" />
      <processPart name="part22">        
        <workflow name="WorkFlowz221" />
      </processPart>    
  </process>
</data>

Methods:

 public ListItemCollection GetListFromXML()  
 {  
   int level = 0;  
   ListItemCollection lic = new ListItemCollection();  
   XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument();  
   xDoc.LoadXml(ep.GetProcessStructureXML());  
   lic = GetListFromSiblings(xDoc.ChildNodes[1], lic, level);        
   return lic;  
 }  
 private ListItemCollection GetListFromSiblings(XmlNode next, ListItemCollection coll, int level)  
 {  
   level++;  
   foreach (XmlNode nod in next.ChildNodes)  
   {  
     ListItem li = new ListItem(GetSpacer(level) + nod.Attributes["name"].Value,   
       nod.Attributes["name"].Value + "" + level);  
     li.Attributes.Add("class","level" + level);  
     coll.Add(li);  
     if (nod.HasChildNodes)  
       coll = GetListFromSiblings(nod.CloneNode(true), coll, level);  
   }  
   return coll;  
 }  
 private string GetSpacer(int lev)  
 {  
   StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("");  
   for (int i = 0; i < lev; i++)  
   {  
     sb.Append("-");  
   }  
   return sb.ToString() + " ";  
 }

Meridium Process Map and default template

2010-01-19T01:43:00.000-08:00

First, create a template that you are pleased with, in the Process Map application, and just save it, and save and puvlish the page.

Second, go to the folder (specified in web.config, key "XMLDataPath") , look in the folder "ProcessMap_published" for your .png that looks familiar. Memorize that GUID.

Then goto folder "ProcessMap_XMLDefinitions" and rename that <GUID>.xml file to for example template1.xml.

Then in Global.asax.cs, add event:
DataFactory.Instance.LoadedDefaultPageData += new PageEventHandler(Instance_LoadedDefaultPageData);

and the methods:

  //ProcessMap logic for creating page and template to be used  
 void Instance_LoadedDefaultPageData(object sender, PageEventArgs e)  
 {  
   // skip all other page types than processmap page, assuming this pagetype is named process..something  
   if (!e.Page.PageTypeName.ToLower().Contains("process"))  
     return;  
   bool hasProcessMap = false;  
   string processMapPropertyName = "";  
   foreach (PropertyData py in e.Page.Property)  
   {  
     if (py.GetType().ToString() == "ProcessMap.EPiServerCMS.Property.PropertyProcessMap")  
     {  
       hasProcessMap = true;  
       processMapPropertyName = py.Name;  
     }  
   }  
   if (!hasProcessMap)  
     return;  
   // If property holds any value, dont overwrite it  
   if (e.Page.Property[processMapPropertyName].Value != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(e.Page.Property[processMapPropertyName].Value.ToString()))  
     return;  
   e.Page.Property[processMapPropertyName].Value = CreateProcessMapTemplateCopy("template1.xml");  
 }  
 //copies the template xml into a new GUID  
 string CreateProcessMapTemplateCopy(string templatename)  
 {  
   string path = Utilities.GetAppSetting("XMLDataPath");  
   FileInfo file = new FileInfo(path + "\\" + templatename);  
   string newfilename = System.Guid.NewGuid() + ".xml";  
   string newfile = path + "\\" + newfilename;  
   if (!file.Exists)  
     return string.Empty;  
   FileInfo filenew = file.CopyTo(newfile, true);  
   return newfilename;  
 }

An there you go!

ASP.NET Extension - Translate a String

2008-10-22T13:43:00.001-07:00

Using Google translations, translate a string to (almost) any language is a simple solution.
Since it is an extension, it will be available like myString.Translate("sv","en"); but you can of course use it as a regular method by removing the arg 'this string s'.
Note that the web server must be able to make web requests to google.com.
You can use both codes like "en" or the culture and lang "sv-SE" version (takes the first one)

It makes a call to Google API and ask for translation, a WebClient is used and it downloads the string translated.

C# code:

 using System;  
 using System.Text;  
 using System.Net;  
     
   
 public static string Translate(this string s, string langFrom, string langTo)  
 {  
 if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(s))  
 return String.Empty;  
   
 if (langFrom.Contains("-"))  
 langFrom = langFrom.Split('-')[0];  
   
 if (langTo.Contains("-"))  
 langTo = langTo.Split('-')[0];  
   
 string address = string.Format("http://www.google.com/translate_t?hl=en&ie=UTF8&text={0}&langpair={1}%7C{2}", s, langFrom, langTo);  

 string html = new WebClient().DownloadString(address);  
 string block = html.Substring(html.IndexOf("id=result_box") + 0x18, 500);  
 string phrase = block.Substring(0, block.IndexOf("</div"));  
 return phrase;  
 }

EPiServer Authentication using Kerberos and Custom App Pool Identity

2008-10-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

This article describes how to get Kerberos handshake to work when the website is running with a pre configured account. It will only happen if you are browsing to the "computer's name", otherwise NTLM is used, which is the most common scenario.

I recently had a hard time to get Windows authentication working properly.

I installed a standard EPiServer CMS SP3, with Authentication mode "windows", and configured the site to use integrated security against the Sql Server.

This was going to be the intranet site, or at least the test site for the intranet.

The window dialog appeared and despite supplying all kinds of usernames and passwords, the site refused to accept my credentials.

What has happened? This is usually working fine out of the box with a minimum of necessary brain activity.

It took half a day before I found the solution, and I hope that anyone that encounter the same problem, will find some help here.

Problem

The problem was that the site (Application pool) was running under a custom identity, and that browsing was against the computer name, which means that Kerberos authentication is being used.

Browsing with the IP or the DNS alias, was no problem at all, since NTLM handshake works fine. Single sign on without any hesitation.

Solution

Log on the webserver using a domain admin account.

Download the SPN tool, and install it.

Start command prompt in the same directory as you installed setspn.

Use the setspn command to authenticate the account on the server/domain.
Syntax:
setspn -A HTTP/<servername> <domain>\<account>

example:
"setspn -A HTTP/srv01 domain1\episervice"
"setspn -A HTTP/srv01.mycomppany.com domain1\episervice"
etc

You must authenticate all hosts, otherwise it won't work.

You can list all hosts with "setspn -l <servername>"

Note that this is only necessary to do when you run the website under a pre configured account, in other more common scenarios, the Kerberos authentication will work just fine.

Edit language xml files - EPiServer CMS 5

2008-08-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

Technorati-taggar: EPiServer

Today I came across a small issue with the language xml files that developers create for each project.

The customer just wants to edit the text translations, not adding elements or changing anything in the xml schema.

This seems like a pretty useful thing for an editor, but there isn't anything available in EPi for this. I looked at the EPiCode's ManageLanguages but it was not capable of editing single files in a simple way (you must always compare 2 xml files), and I also couldn't get it to load up the custom lang files.

So I built this little feature, very easy to use.

Area: PluginArea.ActionWindow

Folder: it is now looking for the files in /lang folder (easily changed in .cs file)

The xml is parsed and the dropdownlist is populated with all elements containing a value in elements innertext

Requirements:

in the codebehind in function 'LoadFiles()', resides the check for which file to add to the list, change that to your filenames, now it is "lang_" since all files are called "lang_EN.xml" etc

Change the Edit.This and Edit/This in both markup and codebehind to your own paths/namespace.

Then you are done!

Create the LanguageManager.ascx

Markup:

 <%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="LanguageManager.ascx.cs"  
   Inherits="Edit.This.Plugins.LanguageManager" %>  
   
 <script language="javascript" src="/util/javascript/common.js" type="text/javascript"></script>  
   
 <b>Language manager</b>  
 <br />  
 <br />  
 Handle the translations in the language xml files.  
 <br />  
 <br />  
 <asp:dropdownlist runat="server" id="ddl_files" autopostback="true" onselectedindexchanged="ddl_selected"  
   width="300"> <asp:ListItem>Select language file:</asp:ListItem> </asp:dropdownlist>  
 <br />  
 <br />  
 <asp:placeholder runat="server" id="ph_nodebox" visible="false"> <asp:DropDownList runat="server" ID="ddl_nodes" AutoPostBack="true" OnSelectedIndexChanged="ddl_nodes_changed" Width="300"></asp:DropDownList> <br /> <br /> <asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="ph_editing" Visible="false"> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="EditNodePreviewInnerText" ForeColor="Teal" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="5" Width="297"></asp:TextBox> <br /><br> <asp:Button runat="server" ID="Button1" Text="Update text" OnClick="Button1_Click" /> </asp:PlaceHolder> </asp:placeholder>  
 <br />  
 <asp:label runat="server" id="msg" forecolor="Red"></asp:label>  
   
 <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">  if (window.parent != null && window.parent.parent != null && window.parent.parent.document.all['epCustomDIV'] != null) window.parent.parent.document.all['epCustomDIV'].parentElement.style.pixelWidth = 400;</script>

Codebehind C#:

 using System;   
 using System.Collections;   
 using System.Configuration;   
 using System.Data;   
 using System.Web;   
 using System.Web.Security;   
 using System.Web.UI;   
 using System.Web.UI.WebControls;   
 using System.IO;   
 using System.Xml;   
 using System.Xml.XPath;   
 using EPiServer;   
 using EPiServer.Core;   
 using EPiServer.PlugIn;   
   
 namespace Edit.This.Plugins   
 {   
   [GuiPlugIn(DisplayName = "Language manager", Area = PlugInArea.ActionWindow, Description = "Manage language xml files", Url = "~/Edit/This/Plugins/LanguageManager.ascx", SortIndex = 50)]   
   public partial class LanguageManager : System.Web.UI.UserControl   
   {   
     Stack st = new Stack();   
     Queue q = new Queue();   
   
     protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)   
     {   
       msg.Text = "";   
       if (!IsPostBack)   
         LoadFiles();  
     }   
       
     protected void ddl_selected(object sender, EventArgs e)   
     {   
       if (ddl_files.SelectedIndex == 0)   
       {   
         ph_nodebox.Visible = false; return;   
       }   
         
       EditNodePreviewInnerText.Text = "";   
       ph_editing.Visible = false;   
       XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument();   
       try   
       {   
         xDoc.Load(ddl_files.SelectedItem.Value);   
         XPathNavigator navigator = xDoc.CreateNavigator();   
         navigator.MoveToRoot(); navigator.MoveToFirstChild();   
         SearchForText(navigator);   
         if (q.Count != 0)   
           FillNodeBox(q);   
       }   
       catch(Exception ex)   
       {   
         msg.Text = "Could not load from path: " + ddl_files.SelectedItem.Value + "<br>" + ex.Message;   
       }   
     }   
       
     protected void ddl_nodes_changed(object sender, EventArgs e)   
     {   
       if (ddl_nodes.SelectedIndex == 0)   
       {   
         ph_editing.Visible = false; return;   
       }   
       ph_editing.Visible = true;   
       XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument(); xDoc.Load(ddl_files.SelectedItem.Value);   
       XmlNode testnode = xDoc.SelectSingleNode(ddl_nodes.SelectedItem.Value); EditNodePreviewInnerText.Text = testnode.InnerText; } protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!CheckXmlIsOk(EditNodePreviewInnerText.Text.Trim())) { msg.Text = "Text contains characters not valid for a xml document. Nothing was saved."; return; } XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument(); xDoc.Load(ddl_files.SelectedItem.Value); XmlNode nodeEditing = xDoc.SelectSingleNode(ddl_nodes.SelectedItem.Value); nodeEditing.InnerText = EditNodePreviewInnerText.Text.Trim(); xDoc.Save(ddl_files.SelectedItem.Value); msg.Text = "Language file '" + ddl_files.SelectedItem.Text + "' was successfully updated."; } private void FillNodeBox(Queue nodequeue) { ph_nodebox.Visible = true; ddl_nodes.Items.Clear(); ddl_nodes.Items.Add(new ListItem("Select a translation to edit:")); while (q.Count > 0) { string p = Convert.ToString(q.Dequeue()); p = p.TrimEnd('/'); string[] arr = p.Split('/'); string text = ""; int i = 0, total = arr.Length - 1; foreach (string segment in arr) { if (i == total || i == (total - 1)) text += segment + "/ "; i++;   
       }   
         //string t = p.Substring(p.LastIndexOf("/"));   
         //t = t.Trim('/');   
         text = text.Replace("[1]", "");   
         text = text.Trim();   
         text = text.Trim('/');   
         ddl_nodes.Items.Add(new ListItem(text, p));  
       }   
       }   
     private bool CheckXmlIsOk(string text)   
     {   
       if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(text))   
         return true;   
       if (text.Contains("&")) return false;   
       if (text.Contains("<")) return false;   
       if (text.Contains(">")) return false;   
       return true;   
     }   
       
     private XPathNavigator SearchForText(XPathNavigator navigator)   
     {   
       //If node type is element, put in stack and move inside of current element   
       if (navigator.NodeType == XPathNodeType.Element)   
       {   
         PushInStack(st, (XPathNavigator)navigator.Clone());  
         if (navigator.HasChildren)   
         {   
           navigator.MoveToFirstChild();   
           navigator = SearchForText(navigator);  
         }   
       }   
       //If node type is text then match with required value   
       else if (navigator.NodeType == XPathNodeType.Text)   
       {   
         if (navigator.Value.Trim().ToLower().Length >= 0)  
         {   
           Stack st2 = new Stack();   
           st2 = (Stack)st.Clone();   
           string val = "";   
           //Retrive stack values and Build XPath   
           while (st2.Count != 0)   
             val = st2.Pop().ToString() + "/" + val;   
           //Put in Queue   
           q.Enqueue(val);   
         }   
         //If sibling is available, then check if it contains other nodes /* e.g. node : * <PARENT>text <CHILD>text</CHILD></PARENT> * */   
         if (navigator.MoveToNext())   
           navigator = SearchForText(navigator);   
         //come to immediate parent   
         else { navigator.MoveToParent();   
           return navigator;   
         }  
       }   
       //Pop one element from stack and move to next sibling   
       if (st.Count > 0)   
         st.Pop();   
       if (navigator.MoveToNext())   
         navigator = SearchForText(navigator);   
       else if (navigator.MoveToParent())   
         return navigator;   
       return navigator;   
     }   
     private void PushInStack(Stack st, XPathNavigator navigator)   
     { string currentName = navigator.Name;   
       int index = 1;   
       while (navigator.MoveToPrevious())   
       { if (navigator.Name.Trim() == currentName)   
         //Same named element node exists   
         index++;   
       }   
       st.Push(currentName + "[" + index.ToString() + "]");   
     }   
       
     private DirectoryInfo GetDirectory()   
     {   
       return new DirectoryInfo(Server.MapPath("/") + @"lang\");  
     }   
       
     private void LoadFiles()   
     {   
       foreach (FileInfo f in GetDirectory().GetFiles())  
       {   
         if(f.Name.StartsWith("lang_"))   
           ddl_files.Items.Add(new ListItem(f.Name,f.FullName));   
       }   
     }   
   }   
 }