Apress dot NET Test Automation Recipes_6 docx

CHAPTER 12  JQUERY 282 Additional Effects In addition to the previous effects, a number of additional effects can be downloaded: fold, pulsate, puff, bounce, and explode (my personal favorite). For more details on these effects please go to http://docs. jquery.com/UI/Effects. Glimmer If you don’t want to hand-code your jQuery effects, you can use a great tool called Glimmer produced by Microsoft that offers a wizard-based approach (see Figure 12-4). Refer to http://visitmix.com/lab/ glimmer. Figure 12-4. Glimmer allows you to easily construct jQuery effects Glimmer allows the construction of simple effects such as rotating images, drop-down menus, and animation. jQuery Tools jQueryPad ( (http://www.paulstovell.com/jquerypad) and http://jsbin.com/ can be very useful tools for prototyping and playing with jQuery. CHAPTER 12  JQUERY 283 Chaining Events The real power of jQuery comes from its capability to chain functions together. Imagine that we wanted to fade our div in and out a number of times. This procedure can be easily accomplished with the following code: $("#div1").fadeOut().fadeIn().fadeOut().fadeIn().fadeOut(); Customizing jQuery You can add your own functions to the jQuery library. For example, to create a simple function that will pop up an alert box, you can do so with the following code: //don't use $ alias in case user overrides it jQuery.fn.say = function (message) { alert("jQuery says " + message); return this; } You can then call the new function with the following code: $.fn.say("hello").say("good bye"); And there is, of course, no reason why you couldn’t write a new effects function and use it as part of a chain of effects. For more information, please refer to http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Authoring. AJAX Methods It is very common for performance optimization to need to retrieve data or code from an external source after a page is loaded. jQuery makes this very easy. Load and Run JavaScript File The following code loads an external JavaScript file called test.js and then executes it: $.ajax({ type: "GET", url: "test.js", dataType: "script" }); The test.js file consists of just the following line: alert('hello'); CHAPTER 12  JQUERY 284 Submitting Data You often need to submit data to another web page. This can easily be done with the following code: $.ajax({ type: "POST", url: "myForm.aspx", data: "firstname=Alex&lastname=Mackey", success: function() { alert("form submitted"); } }); You will use this functionality in the ASP.NET MVC example (see Chapter 13) to submit your form data: //Submit client side $.ajax({ type: "POST", dataType: "json", url: "Edit", data: { Description: InputDescription, Length: InputLength, DateShowing: InputDateShowing }, success: function(result) { alert(result.Message + " adding film at " + result.DateShowing); }, error: function(error) { alert('error '); } }); Getting the Latest Version of a Page We can retrieve the contents of a page in the same domain as the calling page with a few lines of code. This could be useful in AJAX scenarios in which you want to load content behind the scenes: $.ajax({ url: "default2.aspx", cache: false, success: function(returnHtml) { $("#div1").append(returnHtml); } }); CHAPTER 12  JQUERY 285 Retrieving a JSON Object JSON is a compact format for representing data. jQuery contains support for working with JSON objects. We will first create a page called default2.aspx that will return a JSON-formatted string (you will soon look at a better way of doing this). 1. Right-click your solution and add a new page called default2.aspx and select the place code in a seperate file option. 2. Remove all the code on default2.aspx except for the page declaration. 3. Add the following code to default2.aspx.cs: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { Response.Buffer = true; Response.Clear(); Response.ContentType = "application/json"; Response.Write("{firstName: \"Alex\",lastName: \"Mackey\"}"); } 4. Open default.htm and alter the helloJQuery() function to the following (note that we pass a URL to which we send the query and then a function to be called when the query is completed): $.getJSON("default2.aspx", function (data) { alert(data.firstName); } ); 5. Press F5 to run the project. 6. Click the Hello jQuery button. You should see an alert box displaying “Alex” (the firstName property from the JSON object). A Better Way Visual Studio 2008 (and later) offers a better way: 1. Create a new page called default3.aspx and then open default3.aspx.cs. 2. Add the following using statement: using System.Web.Services; 3. Add the following class to represent our returned object: public class Person { public string firstName {get; set;} public string lastName { get; set; } } CHAPTER 12  JQUERY 286 4. Now add a new method to your page marked with the [WebMethod] attribute to expose it to the client script: [WebMethod] public static Person GetFirstname() { Person p = new Person(); p.firstName = "Alex"; p.lastName = "Mackey"; return p; } 5. Now amend the existing jQuery code to the following: $.ajax({ type: "POST", url: "Default3.aspx/GetFirstname", data: "{}", contentType: "application/json", dataType: "json", success: function (input) { alert(input.d.firstName); } }); Much easierand safer. Note that we had to access the d property in order to access the firstName property. This is to prevent the execution of the returned string as a script. For more information, please refer to: http://encosia.com/2009/02/10/a-breaking-change-between-versions-of-aspnet-ajax/. Utility Methods Browser detection is notoriouslly unreliable, but jQuery provides a number of methods to assist you with detecting the capabilities of your visitors’ browsers. For example, the following code will return true or false depending on whether the browser supports the box rendering model: alert($.support.boxModel); For the full list of functionality you can query, please see http://docs.jquery.com/Utilities/ jQuery.support. jQuery Additions In addition to the core jQuery functionality, a number of additional jQuery libraries and add-ons exist that you might find useful. Note some of these are not produced by the core jQuery team but are excellent nevertheless: • Drag and drop elements (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Draggable) • Sorting (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Sortable) • Selecting (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Selectable) CHAPTER 12  JQUERY 287 • Resizing (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Resizable) • jqgrid (http://www.trirand.com/blog/) jQuery also provides a number of UI elements (called widgets) that you might want to utilize: • Accordian • Data picker • Dialog • Progress bar • Slider • Tabs For more information, please refer to http://docs.jquery.com/Main_Page. Summary It is fantastic to see Microsoft not reinventing the wheel and choosing to integrate and provide support for jQuery. jQuery is a lightweight framework, and you would be crazy not to use it in your own projects. Further Reading • http://jquery.com/ • http://github.com/jquery/jquery • http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/09/15/announcing-the-microsoft-ajax- cdn.aspx • http://www.andy-gibson.co.uk/ • http://encosia.com/ For a more in-depth read on jQuery functions, I don’t think you can do much better than jQuery in Action by Bear Bibeault and Yehuda Katz, published by Manning. CHAPTER 13    289 ASP.NET MVC Availability: Framework: 3.5sp1 Onward ASP.NET MVC is Microsoft’s implementation of a tried and tested architectural pattern. MVC separates out an application’s user interface, logic, and data, and makes it easier to test, extend, and maintain. MVC stands for Model, View, Controller. If you were to map these terms to a traditional ASP.NET/database application (and they don’t map exactly) you might consider the following: • Model would be the database. • View would be the pages and controls. • Controller would manage the interaction between the pages/controls (view) and the database (model). So is MVC a replacement for web forms that you know and mostly love? Although some people will argue that ASP.NET MVC will replace the web forms model, I don’t think this is true or is Microsoft’s intention. Both web forms and MVC have their own advantages and, judging by the enhancements made to ASP.NET in this release, web forms are still going to be around for the foreseeable future. So at the moment MVC is another way not the way of creating web applications on the Microsoft .NET platform. I would argue that ASP.NET MVC is a bad choice for some types of applications. If you are designing an application with a rich and complex user interface, development with web forms is much easier with inbuilt handling of state and events. Of course, you could develop such an application with ASP.NET MVC, but I expect it would take longer. MVC History The MVC design pattern has been around since 1979 when it was first described by Trygve Reenskaug, who was working on a language called Smalltalk at Xerox. Trygve called his idea “Thing Model View Editor,” which I think we can all agree really wasn’t as catchy as MVC. Although Trygve’s vision was quite different from ASP.NET’s implementation of MVC, most people agree that Trygve’s vision kicked everything off. You can read Trygve’s original idea at: http://folk.uio.no/trygver/1979/mvc-1/1979-05- MVC.pdf. CHAPTER 13  ASP.NET MVC 290 So Why MVC? MVC is about dividing up your applications. This separation of concerns has a number of advantages: • Division/testability: Traditionally, ASP.NET web applications were difficult to test because ASPX and ASCX controls often end up containing code related to user interface and business logic. In ASP.NET, MVC classes called controllers manage the interaction between the UI and data (model). This separation also makes it much easier to write tests for your application. You can test controller classes directly instead of having to create complex ways of simulating ASP.NET’s UI. • Flexibility: Because all the layers are decoupled, it should be easy to swap out any individual layer without affecting the others. The ASP.NET MVC framework itself is very flexible and allows customization of many components. Perhaps you want to change your UI/view or use a different database? • Maintainability: Although ASP.NET MVC is inherently customizable, it enforces a project to be constructed in a specific way and can help keep an application’s code tidy. Additionally, because the project structure is relatively rigid, new developers arriving on the team should be able to quickly understand its architecture. MVC is a lean mean fighting machine; it doesn’t contain much ASP.NET functionality. This makes it quick (no parsing or sending of viewstate info) and also means no interference with rendered HTML. This makes MVC a great choice for high-volume web sites or where complete control over rendered HTML is vital. An Existing MVC application I think it is useful to start by looking at what a popular application built using MVC looks like. You might be familiar with the Stack Overflow (SO) site. SO is a popular programming web site in which users can ask programming questions to be answered by other users. Other users then answer the questions. These answers are then voted on by other users; those with the most votes (hopefully the best ones!) move to the top of the answer list. Let’s take a look at SO now: 1. Open up a browser and go to http://www.stackoverflow.com. 2. Take a look around the site, paying particular attention to the URL of each page. 3. Imagine that you were creating an application similar to SO but were writing it using web forms. How might you construct it? At a very simple level in a traditional ASP.NET application, you would probably have two pages: one to list all the questions users have asked and another page to display the actual question and answers. From the question list page, you would then pass a question ID in the query string through to the detail page and retrieve the relevant answers. For example when a user clicks on a question the URL might look something like http://www.stackoverflow.com/questionDetail.aspx?id=3434. Now click any question in SO and take a look at the URL. You will see something similar to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/294017/visual-studio-2005-freezes. CHAPTER 13  ASP.NET MVC 291 This URL is superior to the query string version for a number of reasons: • Search engines index it better than a query string version. At the time of writing, Google seems to give a higher precedence to pages with the search term in the URL. • It’s more readable to humans. If you had a product site it’s a lot easier for users to remember an address like http://www.microsoft.com/vs2010/ than http://www.microsoft.com/product/productDetail.aspx?id=4563432234. • The URL can assist other developers integrating with your application to understand how it works. For example, if you examine the question detail page (as shown in Figure 13-1), you will see the answer posts to /questions/740316/answer. You can probably figure out that 740316 is an ID for the question, and it wouldn’t be too tricky to develop an addition to post answers. Figure 13-1. Stack Overflow web sitean example of an ASP.NET MVC application This facility is called routing and although it isn’t specific to ASP.NET MVC, it is an important concept.  TIP Routing is available in ASP.NET 4.0 and net 3.5sp1 (see Chapter 10 for more details), so don’t think you have to use ASP.NET MVC to take advantage of this. [...]... 303 CHAPTER 13 ASP .NET MVC Figure 13-6 List of movies Have We Gone Back to 1998? I think you will agree that the code in this view looks a bit unpleasant when compared with ASP .NET Readers who have worked with classic ASP are probably scratching their heads asking whether we have gone back in time Well, personally I don’t find ASP .NET MVC code as readable as ASP .NET, either, but ASP .NET MVC does give... refer to http://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS.) In a traditional ASP .NET application, entering a script such as the following and submitting it would cause ASP .NET to throw an exception because the ASP .NET engine has detected potentially dangerous input*: alert('XSS waiting to happen'); 316 CHAPTER 13 ASP .NET MVC ASP .NET MVC will not throw an exception, so be sure any output is encoded... http://blog.codeville .net/ 2008/09/01/prevent-cross-site-request-forgery-csrf-using-aspnetmvcs-antiforgerytoken-helper/ Extending MVC ASP .NET MVC is very easy to customize and extend You don’t like how the View engine works? No problem you can override it ASP .NET MVC is a framework practically begging for customization Extension Methods One of the easiest ways to extend the existing ASP .NET MVC functionality... For more information on this please refer to the following: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SplittingDateTimeUnitTestingASPNETMVCCustomModelBinders.aspx 311 CHAPTER 13 ASP .NET MVC Attributes You have already utilized a number of attributes such as AcceptVerbs and Bind Attributes extend ASP .NET MVC’s functionality and you can even create your own Let’s take a quick look at some important attributes AcceptVerbs... class property The @ sign is used as an escape character because class is obviously a keyword in NET 292 CHAPTER 13 ASP .NET MVC Installing MVC Visual Studio 2010 has ASP .NET MVC 2 functionality included out of the box but Visual Studio 2008 users can download it as a separate install from: http://www.asp .net/ mvc/download/ When you want to deploy your application, the method will differ depending on... ASP .NET MVC ASP .NET MVC uses the requested URL to decide how to route users’ requests to a special class called a controller that in turn interacts with your applications model Before you get started with creating a simple application, you should also be aware of the following: • MVC has no Viewstate • Type initialization syntax What a State ASP .NET MVC does not use viewstate Viewstate is used in ASP .NET. .. into the database One method of creating validation rules, as suggested in Wrox’s Professional ASP .NET MVC, is using partial classes (an excellent ASP .NET MVC introduction) You will utilize a very similar method to that suggested in the book as it is easy to understand and very effective 297 CHAPTER 13 ASP .NET MVC 1 Right-click Models directory, select Add New Item 2 Class, and call it Error.cs Enter... user CHAPTER 13 ASP .NET MVC Notice that you did not have to link the Film Controller and ~/Views/Film/Index.aspx page ASP .NET MVC inferred this relationship because you followed a naming convention By following this convention, you can avoid having to write additional code A Closer Look at Routing Let’s look at this process in more detail Figure 13-4 shows how a request in ASP .NET MVC is processed... CHAPTER 13 3 ASP .NET MVC You might think there are easier ways of doing this (and you would be right), but this sets you up nicely for testing the application Now add the following action to retrieve a list of all the films: public ActionResult All() { return View(filmRepository.GetAll()); } 4 Right-click the ~/Views/Film directory and select Add New View Name the view All and click OK (ASP .NET MVC does... As you can imagine, the lack of view state can be problematic after all, ASP .NET s developers did not add it without reason! Imagine, for example, creating a new data paging, orderable data grid control without viewstate and you can see that ASP .NET MVC also has the potential to complicate your life! Type Initialization ASP .NET MVC makes frequent use of type initializers, a feature added in C# version . an ASP .NET MVC application This facility is called routing and although it isn’t specific to ASP .NET MVC, it is an important concept.  TIP Routing is available in ASP .NET 4.0 and net 3.5sp1. Manning. CHAPTER 13    289 ASP .NET MVC Availability: Framework: 3.5sp1 Onward ASP .NET MVC is Microsoft’s implementation of a tried and tested architectural pattern. MVC separates. 13  ASP .NET MVC 290 So Why MVC? MVC is about dividing up your applications. This separation of concerns has a number of advantages: • Division/testability: Traditionally, ASP .NET web applications