I have a regular menu for my site and I wanted to use the Ajax Tabs Control as a submenu when the user was doing point-of-sale (ordering cards that describe the wine).  So when the user was on POS  on the main menu (black background) they would see the submenu as shown below.

To make this, the first thing I did was create a new web user control and add the Ajax Tabs Control.  This user control is called wcPOSMenu and will be place on each of the 3 ASP.Net pages involved. You can see there isn’t much to the markup below.

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="wcPOSMenu.ascx.cs" 

Inherits="ToutonWeb.wcPOSMenu" %>

<%@ Register Assembly="AjaxControlToolkit" Namespace="AjaxControlToolkit" TagPrefix="asp" %>

<asp:TabContainer ID="TabContainerPOS" runat="server" AutoPostBack="true" BorderWidth="0px"

    Width="926px" Height="12px" CssClass="ajax__tab_xp" ActiveTabIndex="0" 

    OnActiveTabChanged="TabContainerPOS_ActiveTabChanged">

    <asp:TabPanel ID="tpSelect" runat="server" HeaderText="Select POS" BorderWidth="0px">

        <ContentTemplate>

            Enter Description or ItemNo to Search for and Hit Enter. Click a Column Heading

            to Sort by That Column.

        </ContentTemplate>

    </asp:TabPanel>

    <asp:TabPanel ID="tpEdit" runat="server" HeaderText="Edit SKUs" BorderWidth="0px">

        <ContentTemplate>

            Enter a SKU to Add or Edit.

        </ContentTemplate>

    </asp:TabPanel>

    <asp:TabPanel ID="tpSend" runat="server" HeaderText="Send POS" BorderWidth="0px">

        <ContentTemplate>

            Send POS.

        </ContentTemplate>

    </asp:TabPanel>

</asp:TabContainer>

One thing to note is that I couldn’t quickly figure out how to eliminate the tab’s containers border so I just made it a height of 12px and used that area as a subtitle to the rest of the content.

Below is the code behind, there isn’t much to this either.  First you have a user control’s property TabIndex that can be set on each of the parent pages.  So for my example the page for “Edit SKUs” will have this user control on it and it’s TabIndex property will be set to the value of 1. 

The page Page_Load event just uses that property to set the current tab.

The TabContainerPOS_ActiveTabChanged just redirects the user to the correct page whenever they change the tab.  To the user is appears they are selecting a menu option, but to the tab control they are actually changing the active tab.

using System;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

namespace ToutonWeb

{

    public partial class wcPOSMenu : System.Web.UI.UserControl

    {

        private int _tabIndex;

        public int TabIndex

        {

            get { return _tabIndex; }

            set { _tabIndex = value; }

        }

        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            if (!Page.IsPostBack)

                this.TabContainerPOS.ActiveTabIndex = _tabIndex;

        }

        protected void TabContainerPOS_ActiveTabChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            switch (TabContainerPOS.ActiveTabIndex)

            {

                case 0:

                    Response.Redirect("~/frmPOS.aspx");

                    break;

                case 1:

                    Response.Redirect("~/frmPOSEdit.aspx");

                    break;

                case 2:

                    Response.Redirect("~/frmPOSSend.aspx");

                    break;

            }

        }

    }

}

On each of the parent pages I just need to add 2 lines.  The first is to register the user control,  line 5 below. The second is line 9 below.  Note the TabIndex property of the user control being set in line 9.

   1: <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Site1.Master" AutoEventWireup="true"

   2:     CodeBehind="frmPOSEdit.aspx.cs" Inherits="ToutonWeb.frmPOSEdit" %>

   3:  

   4: <%@ Register Assembly="AjaxControlToolkit" Namespace="AjaxControlToolkit" TagPrefix="asp"%>

   5: <%@ Register Src="wcPOSMenu.ascx" TagName="wcPOSMenu" TagPrefix="uc1" %>

   6: <asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="head" runat="server">

   7: </asp:Content>

   8: <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolder1" runat="server">

   9:     <uc1:wcPOSMenu ID="wcPOSMenu1" runat="server" TabIndex="1" />

That is it.

In the past we would use a Varchar to pass a comma delimited list of IDs to a stored proc. We would then build a big varchar string of the full SQL and run the dynamic SQL.  Starting with SQL Server 2005 you can pass the stored proc XML and do your select without using dynamic SQL.

The stored proc would look something like:

create proc [dbo].[getLocationTypes](@locationIds XML,

@typeIds XML=null)

as  

begin  

set nocount on  

SELECT locationId, typeId

FROM xrefLocationTypes 

WHERE locationId 

IN (SELECT Item.value('.', 'int' )

FROM @locationIDs.nodes('IDList/ID') AS x(Item))

AND (typeId IN

 (SELECT Item.value('.', 'int' )

FROM @typeIds.nodes('IDList/ID') AS x(Item)))

ORDER BY 1, 2

end  

EXECUTE dbo.getLocationTypes '<IDList><ID>1</ID><ID>3</ID></IDList>', 

'<IDList><ID>200</ID><ID>300</ID><ID>400</ID></IDList>'    

Not many developers realize that you can change a plain HTML object’s attributes in the code behind without having to convert it into an ASP.Net control.

So if I have a checkbox like this:

<input type="checkbox" id="cbShowDef" name="cbShowDef"  onclick="javascript: show()" />

I can hide this in the code behind with:

((System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlInputCheckBox) Form.FindControl("cbShowDef")).Style.Add("display","none");

A lot of times you have something like a description column and you want to display it in a GridView.  But since for some of the rows the description column can be very long, it doesn’t always work very well. One solution is where you set the TD’s attribute NOWRAP, then the column runs off to the right for as long as is needed.  The solution I sometimes employ is the following: 

First, here is my sample table:

CREATE TABLE Categories
(CategoryName varchar(20),
Description varchar(1000))

SELECT c.CategoryName,
CASE WHEN LEN(c.Description) > 30 
    THEN SUBSTRING(c.Description,1,27)+'...' 
    ELSE c.Description END AS LineDescription,  
c.Description AS FullDescription
FROM dbo.Categories c
ORDER BY c.CategoryName

Notice that the Description column is in there twice. Once where it maxes out at 30 characters (the LineDescription column), and the second one that contains the full text (the FullDescription column.) This brings back a table that looks like the following:

So to bind this to the GridView we bind the first two columns only.  The first GridView column is bound to the CategoryName data column and the second one is bound to the LineDescription data column with the heading title of “Description”.  On the second GridView column we also click the “Convert this field into a TemplateField” as shown below.

We save this and then edit the templates for the GridView columns.  For the Description column we edit the ItemTemplate and we bind the ToolTip to the FullDescription data column.

Now we have the GridView column that is titled “Description” bound to the LineDescription data column and the tooltip is bound to the FullDescription data column.  We can run this and  see how it works:

So now we have a short description in our grid, but the user can easily see the full description in the ToolTip.

Real quick I wanted to know what tables and stored procs were in my ReleaseManagerTest database and not in my ReleaseManager database.  So here is the SQL for that.

select min(DB) as DB, name, type

from

(

select 'ReleaseManagerTest' as DB, name, type 

from ReleaseManagerTest.sys.objects 

union all

select 'ReleaseManager' as DB, name, type

from ReleaseManager.sys.objects

) A

group by name, type

having count(*) <> 2

I kept writing the same SQL over and over while developing to find the names of stored procs or to see what objects I had recently added.  So I created a quick stored proc that I now have in my tool box.

create proc obj(@name varchar(50)=null, @type char(1)=null)

as

begin

set nocount on

select o.name, 

o.type, 

convert(varchar(10),o.create_date,1) created, 

convert(varchar(10),o.modify_date,1) modified

from sys.objects o

where (@name is null or o.name like @name)

and (@type is null or o.type = @type)

and o.is_ms_shipped = 0

order by o.modify_date desc

end

go

So if I just do:
obj ‘get%’, ‘P’

I’ll get

and if I call obj with no parameters I will get a list of all my objects with the most recently modified objects first. This works with SQL 2005 and above.

If you work with AJAX for any length of time you will find that no matter what the exception thrown in the code behind the message displayed to the user is “Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.”  Not very useful.

My approach to debugging the exception had been to comment out the UpdatePanel, recreate the exception and see the real error.  But this doesn’t work at all when the code is deployed to the end-user.

So the solution is to capture the AsyncPostBackError event of the ScriptManager as shown here:

Then in the  code for this event (code behind) we can change the AsyncPostBackErrorMessage to the actual error message in the exception.

protected void ScriptManager1_AsyncPostBackError(object sender,AsyncPostBackErrorEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Exception != null && e.Exception.InnerException != null)
    {
        ScriptManager1.AsyncPostBackErrorMessage = e.Exception.InnerException.Message;
        cApp.LogExceptionNoThrow(e.Exception.InnerException);
    }
}

Note that I also log the exception which includes the stack trace so I can later research the problem. 

One further enhancement would be to replace the alert box with a label on the page.  To do this I first wire up an event in JavaScript to capture the return from an Ajax call.  So here I am registering the JavaScript function “endRequest” to be called at the end of an AJAX request.

function pageLoad(sender, args) {
    Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_endRequest(endRequest);
}

And in my endRequest function I set the label and turns off the alert box.

function endRequest(sender, args) {

    if (args.get_error() != undefined) {

        var lbl = $get('<%= this.lblMessage.ClientID %>');
        lbl.innerHTML = args.get_error().message;
        lbl.style.color = 'Red'

        // This will stop the alert box from displaying.
        args.set_errorHandled(true);

        // go to the top so they can see the error message.
        window.scroll(0, 0);

    }
}

Note that the lblMessage label control needs to be inside the UpdatePanel so that it is cleared on the next PostBack. 

So now when I get an exception it displays the real error to the user in a label with red text, something like below. 

And the details are logged in my exceptions table.

Much better than the default.

A friend of mine brought over his laptop because he couldn't remember his new Windows Vista login password. I said I would work on it and worst case I would have to clear everything and reinstall Vista.

Googling around I found that there were tools for clearing the password. I downloaded and burned to a CD the tool here: here at pogostick.net and later Ophcrack found here. Both are free if you are just clearing a password.

Obviously, I first cleared all of the BIOS based passwords (he did remember these). Then I tried to run the 2 tools listed above. The first one couldn't mount the hard drive and the second gave the error "no tables found".

So I Googled for this error. Found 1 comment that said something about not having a drive for the controller card... I see that this is Linux, so maybe the drive isn't there for my friends laptop's controller card, after all, it is a cheap eMachine. (I'm not a Linux guy so I'm not even sure how this works.) So I pop the hard drive out of his laptop and put it in my laptop.

I then booted and tried the Ophcrack CD and it worked. Case closed.

We were changing our linked server and needed to test every page in our website that used that link server.  None of the pages used it directly, but they did call stored procs that would use it or stored procs that would in turn call other stored procs that us it.    I need to find all of the pages that eventually would use it so that we could test them all.  The fact that it could be nested within stored proc calls made it a little more difficult.   Here is how I did it:

Step 1:  A simple stored proc used for searching for text within other stored procs. 

This work for SQL Server 2005

create proc dbo.Find(@search VARCHAR(100) = '') AS  
begin  
set nocount on  
  
SET @search = '%' + @search + '%'  
  
select object_name(o.object_id) Object, o.type
from sys.sql_modules m  
join sys.objects o on m.object_id = o.object_id  
where m.definition like @search  
order by 1  
  
end  

Step 2: Make a working table to store you work as you process the stored procs.

create table spDoc
(parentObj varchar(500),
obj varchar(500),
[type] varchar(3),
level int)

You will be storing the object name (stored proc, function, or trigger) in the column “obj”.  You will be storing the calling stored proc in the “parentObj” column. 

Step 3: Create a stored proc to process your search.

create proc doc(@obj varchar(256))
as
begin
set nocount on
declare @level int


if exists (select 1 from spDoc where parentObj = @obj)
    return  -- already done.

select @level = isnull(level,0)+1
from spDoc
where obj = @obj

if @level is null
    set @level = 1


--Find all of the objects that have the text of the current object.
insert into spDoc
(obj, [type])
exec Find @obj

-- The @obj is the parent of the rows just created.
update spDoc
set parentObj = @obj,
level = @level
where parentObj is null

--Delete where they are both the same.
delete from spDoc
where parentObj = @obj
and obj = @obj


--Loop thru each of the rows just created
--and recursively call this function.
DECLARE @currentObj varchar(256)

DECLARE @getObjs CURSOR

SET @getObjs = CURSOR FOR
select obj
from spDoc
where parentObj = @obj


OPEN @getObjs

FETCH NEXT
FROM @getObjs INTO @currentObj

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
    exec doc @currentObj  -- recursive call

    FETCH NEXT
    FROM @getObjs INTO @currentObj
END

CLOSE @getObjs
DEALLOCATE @getObjs

end

If you were trying to document the object called “MyLink” you would call it like:

   doc MyLink

Step 4: Get your results.

Once the processing is done you only need a listing of the parent objects and this is the list that you would use to check your front end code.  

select distinct parentObj
from spDoc
order by 1

And that is all there is to it.