There has been a program offered by Telerik for some time now, where they will sponsor speakers to give presentations to user groups and code camps.  This was partially an effort to further ensure the quality and existence of user groups since they saw a decline in user group activity in 2008.  The list was never very long, but until now, I didn’t realize how short the list really is.  Telerik announced their Insiders Program today.

This will be a quick post.  I just wanted to let all of my readers know about a tool that Rob Chartier found today.  It’s called jQueryPad.  This is an editor built specifically for jQuery developers to use to build out any jQuery code that they want.  Although I have two specific features on my personal wish list, this tool is outstanding!

I happened across a REST standard for importing remote content today called oEmbed.  It uses REST to display embedded content from other websites.  This specific method avoids (but doesn’t get rid of) XSS issues that are experienced with importing content from other websites.  Using either JSON or XML, you make a GET request using the oEmbed standard, which will return the remote content that you can embed into your own website. 

There are many ways to do this, but using this method, you can gain a higher level of usability over user-entered content in your own web applications.  For example, imagine your end-user having to add a YouTube video into an online editor.  They’d have to:

Find the video on YouTube Copy the embed HTML Figure out where and how to paste content into the source of the editor Paste the HTML source code into the editor Save the content For anyone...

I don’t know about you, but I have begun using jQuery pretty extensively in my UI development.  I know not everyone can, and if you’re in that crowd, I am sooo sorry! :)  jQuery has quite simply and almost single-handedly had an extremely positive impact on all of my web UI.  Through some cool tricks that I’ve picked up here and there, I have created some of the coolest UI’s that I have ever done.  Anyhow, that experience is sure to prove to only get better, as I noticed...

Here is another blog by request.  I blogged not too long ago about using jQuery to change the default option in a listbox.  As a result, a comment was added that asked me how to change the selected option using only the text, and not the value.  Here is the answer!  Doing this is actually quite simple, but may not be straightforward at first. 

In order to demo this, we need a listbox (select, combo box, drop down list, etc.).  Here is the one I am using for my example:

select id="cboList"> option value="val1">Text1option> option value="val2">Text2option> option value="val3">Text3option> option value="val4">Text4option> option value="val5">Text5option> option value="val6">Text6option> select>



Just a simple drop down...

There are some cases where a full-blown web service or WCF implementation is just too much for the project you’re working on.  In those times, I often resort to building a similar implementation using an ASP.Net handler to accepts posts, and return data, just like a standard web service would do.  This is not new.  We’ve been doing similar things in Classic ASP and PHP for some time now. 

I like doing this, because it’s quick, easy, and usually does the job better than a full-fledged web service when this solution fits the project requirements.  Otherwise, this is just stupid! ;)

For my example, I am going to assume you need a handler or web service to return JSON data for an AJAX request, much like you’d need for a jQuery AJAX call.

In its simplest form, JSON data that is returned as a result of an AJAX request looks something like the example below.  The collection name and values will vary from application to application.  Keeping...

In my day job at RezHub.com, we began using jQuery last December, and there has been no turning back.  Our site is a DotNetNuke website, and out main module is the one that facilitates the travel searches, such as the one on the RezHub home page.  It was originally built by Arrow Designs, and has since been maintained by us.  It functions almost exclusively using jQuery and various jQuery plugins, including the Autocomplete plugin.

...

This blog entry is a response to a request from an earlier blog entry, where I used jQuery to search an HTML table.  The request as I understand it is this.  How can I allow the website visitor click on a row in a HTML table, and relocate that row to the top of the table?  Even though I cannot think of a use for this functionality myself, I was intrigued.  So here is how I accomplish that task.

First of all, I needed a table to test this on.  I used the example from the aforementioned post, as shown below:

table id="tblCustomer" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" border="1" style="width: 500px;"> tbody> tr id="rowHeader" style="font-weight: bold;"> td>Firsttd> td>Lasttd> td>Addresstd> td>Citytd> td>Statetd> tr> tr> td>Johntd>...

Well, that’s the title that our Director of Education, James Taylor (JT), at the Orlando .Net User Group has hashed up.  I like it.  It’s catchy and fun.  December user group meetings tend to fade in terms of attendance, so having a catchy title for the meeting might help.  Anyhow, this meeting is going to be about SharePoint, and is featuring John Holliday.  If you do not know who John...

Whenever I provide a listing of records, I always provide a way to search those records.  Typically, the chosen display for these records comes in the form of an HTML table.  My search usually consists of a little T-SQL magic in a stored procedure, which would require a PostBack of some kind to the web server to retrieve the filtered records.  This has never been efficient.  While thinking of this concept earlier today, I had an epiphany.  Why not use jQuery?

I could use jQuery to search the records in one of two ways.  First, the obvious way is to use the built-in AJAX feature in jQuery to perform the search on the database, and then return just the data needed to change the HTML mark-up on the fly.  While that is cool, my current listing of records is not that large.  I wanted a faster solution.

I chose to instead use jQuery...

I just began using the Wizard Web Server Control for the first time recently.  (Can you believe it?)  As it turns out, this control is very useful, and it allows you to easily manage short, wizard-like workflows within ASP.Net.  I am using this control inside of a new custom DotNetNuke® module I am writing, where I take a visitor through an application process. 

One of the features of the Wizard control is the HeaderTemplate.  The HeaderTemplate allows you to place a header section at the top of the control throughout the defined steps.  This is useful for usability to give you another way to visually tell the visitor what they are doing, or what step they’re on.  Here is a simplistic example of the control, using the HeaderTemplate feature.

asp:Wizard ID="wizSignUp" runat="server" ActiveStepIndex="0" DisplaySideBar="false"> HeaderTemplate>...

I am working on a project where we have an outside party developing a DotNetNuke® module for us that relies almost entirely on client side code.  When I way client-side code, I mean JavaScript, the jQuery library, and various jQuery plug-ins.  The module itself is really a beautiful thing.  It is actually able to be used outside of DNN without any problems at all.

Well, like any other project in the history of time, things go wrong.  This time, I need to troubleshoot part of the the JavaScript chain of code to find out where an object is not getting reassigned.  However, the JavaScript code is all compressed using the JavaScript Compressor online utility (based on the Packer by Dean Edward).  What...

In one of my DotNetNuke sites, I have a folder full of XML files. Some had become invalid recently. Here's how I tracked them down.

Since DotNetNuke adopted jQuery into the DNN core, I have been using it. Here is another tip for a common scenario.

We at RezHub.com are upgrading our standard JavaScript code to use jQuery going forward. Today was my first day of just learning jQuery, and not just tinkering with it.

In a follow-up to my previous blog entry, I wanted to directly compare string concatenation methods.

Recently, a colleague and I were discussing the performance difference of String.Format and String.Concat. Here is what followed...

You know those moments when an error that you should never let happen does happen???

I love using SubSonic. If you are or ever have been interested in SubSonic, boy do I have news for you!

This is a question I was about to ask in the ASP.Net forums. Luckily, I happened upon a link that explained this to me though.

I recently attended a ONETUG meeting where Linq To Schema was presented. It is really cool! But I had a heck of time finding it.

I won an award! I will be patting myself on the back, and buying myself a cookie for sure!

I have a project on deck where I am using a multi-threaded process to perform an action in the background while the web visitor looks at a pretty ad during the process. And this is my story...

Here is what happened...

Here is something that was happening to me today when trying to spawn a new thread to perform some task...

I very often end up speaking to people about how much proper string handling, concatenation, and evaluation can increase the performance of a web site or application. So I decided to write a guide about it...

For some odd reason, the XPathDocument class does not support loading the object using a string. However, this seems to be an integral requirement for some applications where the XML is generated and parsed on-the-fly. Here's how to do that...

There are times when you need to incorporate a client-side form on your web form, user control, or DNN module. As you probably already know, this will not work. By default, ASP.Net doesn't allow child forms anymore.

I recently had a project where the home page for a web site called for an image that loaded randomly each time the page is loaded. For example, the first time you viewed the home page, you might be looking at monkeys, the next time a llama, and so on.

Invariably, at some point you will have a control that needs to display a list of options as a checkbox list. In order for our application to be user-friendly, we will need to provide the ability for the end-user to Select All checkboxes with a single click, as well as uncheck all checkboxes. With a bit of client-side code, this is easily achieved.

Have you ever worked with an application that had many different connection strings and databases? It is sometimes necessary to grab some information from those connection strings. I have run into such a situation recently. Here is how to grab the database name from the connection string.

While I was writing a class to allow me to quickly grab preformatted JavaScript functions (i.e., confirm, alert, etc.), I came across the need to ensure that a string passed into those methods would not throw a JavaScript error upon rendering. This could possibly happen if the message contained singles quotes for contractions, quotes, etc.

From time to time we need to do something that the .Net framework doesn't immediately expose to us (without some finagling). In this instance, I wanted to override the attributes that the labels generated by the CheckBoxList webcontrol. However, I only wanted to modify this one instance of it.

I came across a requirement where I needed to create a DataTable of times for a project. This table didn't need to take up any space on the database since it would never change. The times would need to be listed in 30 minute increments for each hour of the day. This would then get binded mostly by dropdown lists.

Here is an error that kind of irritates me only because Microsoft should have thought this one through. However, we find ourselves thinking or saying that more often then we'd like, huh?

I am just an amateur when it comes to regular expression, but I plan on getting a whole lot better at it. There is too much potential there to not want to use it more often. I just came up with a regular expression pattern to validate time format. It has some small checks incorporated for valid times, but it is not 100% inclusive.

I have another one for you! This one will validate a date within the current century. This should be sufficient enough for most current applications.

I began playing with the Microsoft AJAX 1.0 features today with an actual project instead of simple test scenarios similar to the AJAX videos offered on the ASP.Net web site. I am using AJAX controls to make an asynchronous call to my server which in turns calls an external web service and repopulates a textarea control. The first click of the button that submits the call works perfectly. The call goes out, and in just 'sec my SOAP response is shown in the textarea without a hitch. However, this is where a big brick gets thrown through the window!

I have been using AJAX for some time now, though I do not code AJAX as you might think. I have been using the AJAX tools provided from Telerik to do so. Their tools have been straight-forward and easy to use much like any other web control. However, right now I am evaluating whether I should continue to use these tools with my most current project or move on to using Microsoft's AJAX tools. I have been looking through the "How To" videos at the following URL and I must say that this is a very interesting take on providing AJAX tools to developers. However, I believe that there is still too much for the developer to do upfront to always use these tools for your .Net AJAX needs.

ARGH!!! I have been having the worst time trying to install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on my development machine at home. Since I had already been burned in the BETA initiation when I installed at work, I already knew to uninstall any .Net 2.0 development software before I began installation (BETA or not).

First of all, sorry that I haven't posted in a while. I know all of my readers (namely - ME) have missed me deeply. I hope to find more time to release thoughts and whatnot soon. If you are a web developer who deals with some kind of server-side programming, I am sure that at some point or another you will find this post useful.

There are many instances where you might want to either write all of the items in the Server Variables collection, or at least be able to step through them. For instance, you may want to know use this information as part of the text returned from a feedback form to let you know what the user's settings and referring URL were. Or, perhaps you want to know this information as part of an error handling schema you have developed.