Responsive Web Design (RWD) is starting to take off as a lightweight way to adapt websites for different screen sizes and resolutions, but does it do enough? Dino Esposito thinks we can go further, and offer a better experience to all users, by combining RWD with a server-side approach.… Read more
Attribute routing solves a lot of the problems of classic ASP.NET routing, which can get ungainly when there are many route handlers, or you have several REST services. Dino shows how to enable and use attribute routing in ASP.NET MVC… Read more
Underscore.JS is a useful JavaScript library for anyone familiar with the LINQ syntax. It is not a direct LINQ port like Rx or linq.js, but provides a very useful "LINQ-like" experience for anyone familiar with functional programming. Is it similar enough to LINQ to make it easy to transfer your existing skills?… Read more
Continuing the project to build a Business Intelligence (BI) application using R, Visual Studio 2012 and Twitter Bootstrap, Sergei introduces drill-down via jQuery and jQuery UI, simplifies the R coding with the PLYR and GGPLOT2 libraries, and shows how to generate reports simultaneously with a batch f… Read more
It is only a matter of time in developing most websites that you'll need to implement a way of restricting access to parts of the site. In MVC, the 'Authorize' attribute handles both authentication and authorization. In general, it works well, with the help of extension to handle AJAX calls elegantly, and to distinguish between unauthorized users and those who are not logged in.… Read more
It is possible to use the R statistical package to extract Business Intelligence from the data in a SQL Server database, and render graphs and tables in HTML to give you a BI Dashboard in an ASP.NET MVC website. Sergei gives you a step-by-step guide. … Read more
Are there ever times when the best practice for a GUI is to let the user type-in information using the keyboard? Of course there are, but then the users nowadays expect, when it is appropriate, to have auto-completion and suggestions that come with the search engines such as Google, and from mobile computers. The GUI must never get in the way. Dino shows how, as usual.… Read more
Forms in websites have, for a long time, languished in their classic clunky pattern of browser-led 'submit' of content, using the FORM tag. As websites grow nearer to applications in their user-experience, so better is required. Dino show how to get a more sophisticated modal input form based on Twitter Bootstrap, jQuery Validate, and XmlHttpRequest (XHR). … Read more
CSS is still a valuable way of specifying the rendered style of HTML objects. By using a preprocessor to assist in generating the CSS, it can make it much simpler to develop and maintain a consistent style in a web development, despite the increasing complexity of the CSS standard. Sass and Compass, for example, can deliver clean, organized, and efficient CSS code, as Edward demonstrates.… Read more
With an ASP.NET MVC application of any size, there comes a time when you are faced with creating utility forms where you don't need a special form layout. One of the best ways of doing this is by using data annotations. Despite a quirk or two, it can save a lot of time. … Read more
The Designers of CSS never envisaged the demands that we make of styles. However, preprocessors such as SASS can provide the obvious missing features such as constants, selector inheritence and nesting. Compass can in turn use SASS to provide a simple browser-independent way of expressing complex layout.… Read more
Display modes in ASP.NET MVC 4 provide a neat way of separating page content from the way it is rendered on different devices. All you need to do is to define a display mode for each device, or class of devices, that you're interested in.… Read more
Even ASP.NET MVC can be improved. Dino explains the value of templates, and makes a case for the productivity gains that could come if there was a way of making more interactive custom templates that are honed for your own particular requirements.… Read more
Git isn't just for source code, but it also helps with the prototyping of the user interface. It allows for faster iteration and a better structure for making and recording design decisions. GitHub for Windows provides an way to visualize what decisions are available and to work on several possible alternatives independently.… Read more
The ASP.NET MVC controller is a good friend of web developers. There are a host of features in it that can be used to reduce the amount of coding you have to do, and to make the logic simpler. … Read more
ASP.NET MVC is built on top of ASP.NET's HTTP handlers and ad hoc URLs. The process of routing a URL to the correct controller/action pair makes it far easier to create any website that plays a more versatile role than merely serving file-based pages.… Read more
Switching from developing ASP.NET WebForms to MVC might seem awkward at first, but Ed demonstrates why the change needn't be painful, and how best to build a set of tools for rapid MVC development. This article is hosted on Github, so feel free to contribute suggestions, improvements or translations.… Read more
Asynchrony is essential for scalability and performance on the server side. Although it has always been possible to write asynchronous code, there has, up to now, been a downside: it is difficult to understand and maintain. Now, with the async/await. keywords, the whole approach is radically simplified for the programmer.… Read more
To be scalable, web applications have always had to be asynchronous, even if the programmer did not need to be particularly aware of the fact. However ASP.NET Webforms and ASP.NET MVC now to make it simpler for developers to implement HTTP handlers asynchronously. You can also start implementing asynchronous operations for potentially lengthy tasks in ASP.NET MVC. Dino explains how. … Read more
Why is it that ASP.NET MVC has such strongly-enforced naming conventions? Can conventions for the default behaviour of code actually help to reduce the complexity of applications, and at what point is it wise to break conventions in application architecture. Dino investigates the issues.… Read more
