Showing posts with label .Net. Show all posts
Showing posts with label .Net. Show all posts

Dec 11, 2012

Consuming a web service using ASP .NET

To know about basics of web service read this article.
To know about creating a web service using ASP .NET read this article.

Background:
In the previous article we have learned about creating a web service. Now in this article, we will learn how to consume a web service using asp .NET.
Real Time Example:
Nowadays mobile application (Mobile Apps) are used widely all the users. Take a scenario, we install the “Weather” gadget in our mobile and check the weather of a particular place.
Think where we are receiving this weather information? It is actually we are consuming the web services.
We will select the region/place to see the weather, a web service will be called and the weather info is displayed.
Hence, Web Services are hosted somewhere and via internet we are consuming the data through the web service.

Implementation:
1. Create an ASP .NET web application with a simple design as shown below:
2. Now, we have to add the web service reference to this Project (Here we use the web service created in the previous article). Click on the Projects in solution explorer -> Add web reference -> give the url of the web service
(Note: to access the web service in the client use the appropriate machine/domain name)
Now, you will see the following screen:
3. Click on Go and search the web service and then give the web reference name say “Consume Service” in our example. Then click Add Reference button.
4. Now, in the solution explorer you will see the Web Reference being added as shown below:
5. We can use the methods exposed by the web service in our code and test the result. Sample code is shown below:
public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page 
{
   protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
   }
    protected void btnToCelsius_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        double x = Convert.ToDouble(txtValue.Text);
        if(txtValue.Text != string.Empty)
        {
            try
            {
                ConsumeService.Service service = new ConsumeService.Service();

                lblOutput.Text = service.ToCelsius(x).ToString();                
                
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
        }
    }
    protected void btnToFahreinheit_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        double x = Convert.ToDouble(txtValue.Text);

        if (txtValue.Text != string.Empty)
        {
            try
            {
                ConsumeService.Service service = new ConsumeService.Service();

                lblOutput.Text = service.ToFahreinheit(x).ToString();

            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
        }
    }
}

6. Build and run the code. Test the result by giving some inputs as shown below:

The whole source code can be downloaded from this link.

Hope the three articles about the web services explained about the basics of web services, creating and consuming the web services using ASP .NET in a simple way.
Please free to comment which help me to write more.

Creating Web Service using ASP .NET

To know about basics of web service read this article.

1.   Create an ASP .NET web service application using Microsoft Visual Studio.
2. Take a scenario that we have to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice versa.
3.   Below is the code for our scenario:
using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Services;
using System.Web.Services.Protocols;

[WebService(Namespace = "http://ConversionWebService.org/Temp")]
[WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
public class Service : System.Web.Services.WebService
{
    public Service () {

        //Uncomment the following line if using designed components 
        //InitializeComponent(); 
    }
    [WebMethod(Description = "Convert Celsius to Fahreinheit")]
    public double ToFahreinheit(double C)
    {
        return C * (9.0/5.0) + 32;        
    }

    [WebMethod(Description = "Convert Fahreinheit to Celsius")]
    public double ToCelsius(double F)
    {
        return (F - 32) * (5.0/9.0);        
    }
   }
4. Build and run the web service, you will see the following output:
5.Now, we will test the web service by giving input values and invoke it.Below are the screen shots which will show the input given and the results:


                             
Hope this article, explains you about creating and running a simple web service using ASP .NET
Here is the link to download the full source code.

To know about consuming a web service using ASP .NET read this article.

Basics of Web Services

Introduction:
In this article, we aim at learning the basics of web services and understand how does web service works.
WebService:
1.   Web services are the easy way to create communications between different applications of different platform.
2.  Web Services extend these models a bit further to communicate with the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) to eradicate the object-model-specific protocol barrier.

Components of Web Service:
All the standard Web Services works using following components
  1. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
  2. UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)
  3. WSDL (Web Services Description Language)
SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol):
SOAP is an XML-based protocol to let applications exchange information over HTTP. Simply, SOAP is a protocol for accessing a Web Service.
  1. It is a communication protocol and it is a format for sending messages.
  2. It is designed to communicate via Internet (W3C standard)
  3. It is platform and language independent
  4. SOAP allows you to get around firewalls
WSDL (WebServices Description language):
It is a W3C standard used to describe and locate the web service in XML language format.
UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration):
  1. It is a directory for storing information about web service
  2. It communicates via SOAP
  3. It is built on .NET platform
Why web service?
  1. Interoperability
  2. Usability
  3. Deployability
  4. Reusability
For more details on the advantages and disadvantages refer this MSDN article: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/asmxandxml/thread/435f43a9-ee17-4700-8c9d-d9c3ba57b5ef

To know about creating a web service using ASP .NET read this article.
To know about consuming a web service using ASP .NET read this article.

Jun 4, 2012

Creating and Deploying Custom Web Part in SharePoint

In this article, we will learn how to create a Custom Web Part in SharePoint using Visual Studio.
After reading this article, you will learn the following:
  Ø  Creating custom web part using visual studio
  Ø  How to use Labels, Rich text box and Buttons (with events) and validation   
        controls in the custom web part?
  Ø  How to validate the fields in custom web part in SharePoint?
  Ø  How to deploy the web part in SharePoint site?

Scenario:
Suppose that in a SharePoint page, you want the users to comment about the page or send some feedback, and then you can use this web part.

Solution:
It is created the following solution using Visual Studio 2005.
Steps:
1. Open the Visual Studio -> Click File -> New project -> Select Visual C# from Project types -> SharePoint -> web Part (Use this link for downloading the Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint for creating SharePoint solutions in the Visual Studio 2005)
2. Once created, delete the web part present in the solution named webpart1. Now click on the Project Solution -> Add -> New Item -> SharePoint -> Web Part -> Give the name as CommentWebPart -> Click Add to create a web part file in the project solution
3. Now, we will create controls and add in the web part. See the following code which is used for creating this web part.
Program.cs:
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;

namespace CommentWebPart
{
    [Guid("745a216c-1126-4000-a189-02ebc60d7e67")]
    public class CommentWebPart : System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart
    {
        TextBox txtContactName;
        TextBox txtEmailAddress;
        InputFormTextBox txtBox;
        Button btnSubmit;
        Button btnCancel;
        Label lblSpace;

                                     
        public CommentWebPart()
        {
            
        }

        protected override void CreateChildControls()
        {
            try
            {
                base.CreateChildControls();

                Table t;
                TableRow tr;
                TableCell tc;

                // Creating a table to add the controls in it
                t = new Table();

                // Label for contact name
                tr = new TableRow();
                tc = new TableCell();
                tc.Style["padding-top"] = "5px";
                tc.VerticalAlign = VerticalAlign.Top;
                Label lblConatctName = new Label();
                lblConatctName.Text = "Conact Name";
                tc.Controls.Add(lblConatctName);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);


                // Text box for contact name
                tc = new TableCell();
                tc.VerticalAlign = VerticalAlign.Top;
                txtContactName = new TextBox();
                txtContactName.ID = "txtContactName";
                txtContactName.Width = Unit.Pixel(250);
                tc.Controls.Add(txtContactName);

                /* Creating required field validator for Contact Name. 
                * If the value is empty, then should throw error on clicking button Submit*/

                RequiredFieldValidator objName = new RequiredFieldValidator();
                objName.ControlToValidate = "txtContactName";
                objName.ErrorMessage = "Conatct Name cannot be empty";
                tc.Controls.Add(objName);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);

                t.Controls.Add(tr);
                
                // Label for email id
                tr = new TableRow();
                tc = new TableCell();
                tc.VerticalAlign = VerticalAlign.Top;
                Label lblEmailId = new Label();
                lblEmailId.Text = "Email ID";
                tc.Controls.Add(lblEmailId);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);

                // Text box for email id
                tc = new TableCell();
                tc.VerticalAlign = VerticalAlign.Top;
                txtEmailAddress = new TextBox();
                txtEmailAddress.ID = "txtEmailAddress";
                txtEmailAddress.Width = Unit.Pixel(250);
                tc.Controls.Add(txtEmailAddress);

                /* Creating required field validator for Email ID. 
                * If the value is empty, then should throw error on clicking button Submit*/

                RequiredFieldValidator objEmailID = new RequiredFieldValidator();
                objEmailID.ControlToValidate = "txtEmailAddress";
                objEmailID.ErrorMessage = "Email Id cannot be left empty";
                tc.Controls.Add(objEmailID);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);

                /* Creating Regular Expression validator for Email ID. 
                * If the value is empty or not in a regular Email ID format,
                * then should throw error on clicking button Submit*/

                RegularExpressionValidator objEmail = new RegularExpressionValidator();
                objEmail.ControlToValidate = "txtEmailAddress";
                objEmail.ErrorMessage = "Email Id is not in the correct format";
                objEmail.Display = ValidatorDisplay.Dynamic;
                objEmail.ValidationExpression = @"^([0-9a-zA-Z]([-.\w]*[0-9a-zA-Z])*@([0-9a-zA-Z][-\w]*[0-9a-zA-
                Z]\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,9})$";
                tc.Controls.Add(objEmail);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);

                t.Controls.Add(tr);

                // Label for text box
                tr = new TableRow();
                tc = new TableCell();
                tc.VerticalAlign = VerticalAlign.Top;
                Label lblComments = new Label();
                lblComments.Text = "Comments";
                tc.Controls.Add(lblComments);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);
                               
                            
                // Creating a rich text box for comments
                tc=new TableCell();
                tc.VerticalAlign=VerticalAlign.Top;
                txtBox=new InputFormTextBox();
                txtBox.ID="txtBox";
                txtBox.RichText = true;
                txtBox.RichTextMode=SPRichTextMode.FullHtml;
                txtBox.TextMode=TextBoxMode.MultiLine;
                txtBox.Rows=10;
                txtBox.Width=Unit.Percentage(100);
                txtBox.Height = Unit.Percentage(30);
                tc.Controls.Add(txtBox);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);

                t.Controls.Add(tr);

                // Creating empty cell for spacing
                tr = new TableRow();
                tc = new TableCell();
                lblSpace = new Label();
                lblSpace.Text = "   ";
                tc.Controls.Add(lblSpace);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);

                tc = new TableCell();

                // Creating button submit event
                btnSubmit = new Button();
                btnSubmit.ID = "btnSubmit";
                btnSubmit.Text = "Submit";
                btnSubmit.Click +=new EventHandler(btnSubmit_Click);
                tc.Controls.Add(btnSubmit);
                
                // Creating button cancel event
                btnCancel = new Button();
                btnCancel.ID = "btnCancel";
                btnCancel.Text = "Cancel";
                btnCancel.Click +=new EventHandler(btnCancel_Click);
                
                lblSpace = new Label();
                lblSpace.Text = "   ";
                tc.Controls.Add(lblSpace);
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);
                tc.Controls.Add(btnCancel);
                
                tr.Controls.Add(tc);

                t.Controls.Add(tr);

                this.Controls.Add(t);

            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                string err = "Error Occured while loading the web part" + ex.Message;
            }
      }

        protected void btnSubmit_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            try
            {
                // Creating the EMail message 
                System.Text.StringBuilder txtMessage = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
                txtMessage.Append("Contact Name: ");
                txtMessage.AppendLine(txtContactName.Text);
                txtMessage.Append("Email Address: ");
                txtMessage.AppendLine(txtEmailAddress.Text);
                txtMessage.AppendLine();
                txtMessage.AppendLine("Comment:");
                txtMessage.AppendLine(txtBox.Text);

                // Creating the Email subject message
                System.Text.StringBuilder txtsubject = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
                txtsubject.Append("Comment from");
                txtsubject.Append(txtContactName.Text);

                // Cerating the message header
                System.Collections.Specialized.StringDictionary txtmessageHeader = new
                System.Collections.Specialized.StringDictionary();
                
                // To whom the mail should be sent
                txtmessageHeader.Add("to", "MAIL ID OF THE USER TO WHOM THE COMMENT HAS TO BE SENT");

                // From whom the comment is being sent
                txtmessageHeader.Add("from", txtEmailAddress.Text);
                txtmessageHeader.Add("subject", txtsubject.ToString());
                txtmessageHeader.Add("content-type", "text/RichText");

                // Send the email with the comment from the user
                Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.SendEmail(SPContext.Current.Web, txtmessageHeader,               
                txtMessage.ToString());

                // Clear the fields after sending the mail
                txtContactName.Text = "";
                txtEmailAddress.Text = "";
                txtBox.Text = "";
                
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                string str= "Unable to send mail:" + ex.Message;
            }
        }

        protected void btnCancel_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            // Clear the fields on clicking cancel
            txtContactName.Text = "";
            txtEmailAddress.Text = "";
            txtBox.Text = "";
        }

   }
}
4. Build the web part and check for errors.
5. Now, to deploy the solution Right Click on the project solution -> Select Deploy to add the solutions in the Solution Gallery.

6. Now the solution will be present in the Solution Gallery (Central Administration-> Operations -> Solution Management) in the SharePoint site and we have to add it to our site.
7. Go to the SharePoint site -> Site Actions -> Site Settings -> galleries -> web parts

8. Now, Click on New -> You will see the list of deployed web parts and click on Comment Web part and then Click Populate Gallery


9. Now the web part is available in the SharePoint site but we have to add Safe control entry in the web.config of the site. Add the following in the web.config in the SAFE CONTROLS tag section 


10. Now you can add the created custom web part in your SharePoint site. This will look as follows:
According to the required field validation, if the name and email id is field is left empty then the following screen should be seen:
If the Email ID is given in the wrong format then according to the regular expression validation, the following screen should be seen:
If the input fields are correctly given, then you will be able to submit the 
comment to the described mail ID in the code as shown below:
HAPPY SHARING J
Also, to know about the Basics of Visual Web Part read this article.
To know about Creating and Deploying a Visual Web Part using Visual Studio 2010 read this article.
Please free to share your thoughts and share this post if this helps you!

May 23, 2012

Error: The language-neutral solution package was not found.

While using Visual Studio, you may get the following error
“The language-neutral solution package was not found.”
Solution:
There are three ways you can fix this problem:
1. This may be caused due to the CACHING issue in the Visual Studio and hence restarting the Visual Studio will help you in fixing the issue.
2. Sometimes the solution you are trying to update will not get updated properly. Hence delete the following folders (By navigating to In Visual Studio   -> Right click on project in Solution Explorer window -> Select Open folder in Windows Explorer)  bin, obj and package.
After deleting these folders, rebuild and deploy the solution which will work out.
3. Or finally, you can retract the solution from the Central Admin (in case of SharePoint related issues) and then uninstall the solution dll from the assembly folder. Then try to deploy the solution.
Please free to comment and share this post, if this helps you!

May 16, 2012

Chart Controls in ASP.Net

I was looking at creating chart controls for implementing in the .Net web applications. I didn’t like to use the 3rd party tools or any freeware tools. Well, while browsing found a cool feature provided by MICROSOFT for the same.
In this article, we will have a look at the CHART CONTROLS in .Net applications.
Pre-requisites
Ø  Visual Studio 2008 SP1, Link to download
Ø  .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, Link to download
Ø   Microsoft Chart Controls, Link to download
Ø  Visual Studio 2008 Add-on for the Chart Controls, Link to download
Ø  Documentations by Microsoft, Link to download
Ø  Web and Windows Application Samples, Link to download
Types of Charts
Ø  Area Charts
Ø  Bar column Charts
Ø  Circular Charts
Ø  Combination Charts
Ø  Data Distribution Charts
Ø  Error Bar
Ø  Financial Charts
Ø  Line Charts
Ø  Pie Doughnut Charts
Ø  Point Charts
Ø  Price Range Financial Charts
Ø  Pyramid Funnel Charts
Ø  Range Charts
Examples
The examples provided by Microsoft are very clear and easy. Hence you can download and try the samples. Also, the control is easy to use, just drag and drop the control and start using it.
Namespace
The namespace which we use here is System.Web.UI.DataVisualization.Charting.
More about Chart Controls
Ø  This control is not available for Visual Studio 2005.
Ø  It is available as a native component in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1.  First you have to install the Chart Controls provided by Microsoft and then the add-ons for using the control.
Ø  But in Visual Studio 2010, it is present as inbuilt component. We can just use it!
More Useful Reference Links
Installing and using Chart Controls in Visual Studio 2010, here.
Using Chart Controls in Visual Studio 2005, here.
Happy Sharing!