Block asp.net mvc Html creation in using scope - asp.net-mvc-3

I use an HTML helper that returns an IDisposable to create a specific DIV structure that I need very often in my application. The constructor of this class creates the open divs while the Dispose method created to closing Divs. Now I need to secure my application and I would like this structure not to be created in some condition but I also need that every kind of HTML that this produced between using and the end if its scope is also not rendered.
First thing I did was to replace the TextWriter found int he ViewContext with dummy :
_helper.ViewContext.Writer = new StringWriter(new StringBuilder());
Its working for each piece of code that directly uses the ViewContext Writer to render HTML but not for the others (raw HTML and other helper)
So the question is : How can we prevent a Asp.net view to render HTML within the scope of a using block ?

I am afraid that currently there's no way of preventing the contents of a using block to be rendered. That was not the original intent of this block anyway. If you want to prevent something from being rendered you might consider using an if statement instead.

I have no example code for you, and this idea is pretty hackish but may work if you have a zillion of these things you need to secure and don't have time to add condition logic.
What if you used the app's Response.Filter to strip out html? Then in your constructor and dispose methods, if the user isn't authorized to see the content, output some easy to find elements that you could either regex replace or use Html Agility Pack to parse/modify the DOM before the stream is sent to the browser.

Related

Override EditorTemplate based on BeginForm

I am using EditorTemplates to style all my input fields. Works like a charm, however now I want two themes of EditorTemplates, one for normal forms, and then one for my wizard forms.
I am already using an overloaded Html.BeginWizardForm() around those Html.EditorFor - but how do I make the MVC logic react on being inside Html.BeginWizardForm() ?
EditorTemplates are designed to be somewhat global. You can override them, though, just like any other view, because they are just views. For example, assuming you have something like Views\Shared\EditorTemplates\String.cshtml, you can then create a another view at Views\Foo\EditorTemplates\String.cshtml, and for any action called from FooController, the latter editor template will be used instead of the one from Shared. You might be able to make this work in your scenario if the wizard form is used in a specific controller or area context.
Short of that, though, there's no way to have this occur automatically. Some manual options still exist, though.
You can decorate the properties of the view model used within the context of the wizard with UIHint attributes. For example, assuming the same shared editor template above, you could do something like:
[UIHint("WizardString")]
public string Foo { get; set; }
That would cause it to look for Views\Shared\EditorTemplates\WizardString.cshtml instead.
You can pass the editor template to use in the call to EditorFor:
#Html.EditorFor(m => m.Foo, "WizardString")
All that said, the biggest problem here is that you seem to be violating a pretty core principal of good web design. HTML is about structure, not presentation. CSS is for presentation. As a result, if you want something to look different in a certain context, the correct approach is to apply different CSS. If things are designed well, your HTML shouldn't really have to change.
It seems is as stated by Chris Pratt not possible to have multiple EditorTemplates.
I however found a workaround by extending the MvcForm and created a WizardForm which adds a value to the ViewContext (in my case "wizardContext" => true) and on disposing setting wizardContext => false.
This allows me in the EditorTemplates to add a check for if I am inside or outside the wizardContext, which will propagate through the nested EditorFor, and in this way allow me to have different themes, without having to be specific in EditorFor.

how to apply css class on body tag using c# files

I'm using ASP.NET MVC3 with razor engine.I want to apply css class on body tag according to page call.
I want to add class name in child page and it will affect on layout page which has body tag.
and don't want to use jquery because it execute after page render.
How can i do this?
While you may have full control of the HTML a solution was what was needed so here is one ;-)
In the _layout.cshtml page
<body class="#RenderSection("BodyClass", false)">
This will look for a section in all the child pages but says don't worry if it can't find one
Then in your child views just do this
#section BodyClass {productList}
Keep it on one line and then the outputted HTML will look fine, also you can then build up the class names as well.
#section BodyClass {productList generic}
This idea goes perfect with DOM-Ready page specific code, why not checkout
http://paulirish.com/2009/markup-based-unobtrusive-comprehensive-dom-ready-execution/
Or my extended version here
https://github.com/AaronLayton/H5BP-Core
My way lets you do page specific code, but allows you to keep all of the Javascript in separate pages so each page becomes easily manageable. The final step would be to concatenate and minify all the JS into 1 file ;-)
Aaron's answer above works great for MVC 3, but I found that MVC 4 chokes on the single line section statement:
#section BodyClass {productList}
Instead, you need to use:
#section BodyClass {#("productList")}
First of all jQuery's .ready function executes after the DOM is available so it's the optimal moment to start interaction with your page's elements. ( http://api.jquery.com/ready/ ) If you experience a behavior that results in styles 'flicker' you may wan't to apply display:none to body element, and removing it after you css class has been applied.
but if you really don't want to use jQuery you should consider either making a variable to hold your css class name as a part of a viewmodel your controller will be sending to Views, or going with ViewBag.CssClass that should be declared in each of your controller's actions (or in base controller's OnActionExecuting method.
Thing to consider here is understanding and following MVC pattern, where View and Business Logic should be separated. So in my opinion you should rather avoid involving controllers in view building process.
It's much easier to simply put the following in your main layout
<body class="#ViewBag.BodyClass">
Then in the content pages put:
#{
ViewBag.BodyClass = "myClass";
}
Problem solved!

With regards to Html helpers, does data access code go into the helper class too?

I am writing a helper class to query my Zenfolio feed, return and display the images. Right now this code is split between a viewmodel and code in my controller. I want to pack it up into a helper class. Would all the code go into the helper or do i still split the code among different class with the helper only responible for generating the html? I have googled but not found an answer to my question.
Within the MVC pattern there is a clear separation between Model (data), View (html) and Controller (what gives the Model to the View).
To answer your question, No. Load your models in your Controller. Display them in your View. Html Helpers should only generate html for your view.
You may want to consider using a DisplayTemplate, which allows you use the same View template for every model of a particular type.
I wouldn't do any data access from the view. This sounds like a good use case for an action, and reusing code via the RenderAction method. You can mark the action as a child action using the [ChildActionOnly] attribute, which ensures it can't be invoked directly from the HTTP request, and return a PartialView result.
HTML helpers should really be used to generate HTML tags from data taken from the ViewData or Model (i.e. your view model in this case).
Data access in an HtmlHelper is only pain.
I've had the misfortune to inherit a project that had ad-hoc SQL placed into the HtmlHelpers by the 2nd developer on a project. The HtmlHelpers were beautifully written by the first developer, and the ad-hoc SQL pretty much nullified all of the time and effort put into having an service oriented architecture, having an ORM (the 2nd level cache became worthless), the unit of work pattern(transactions, worthless), and every aspect of design. Eventually, this 2nd developer had to make larger and larger HtmlHelpers so that different elements could share access to the data.
This was originally done for a display mode, and editing was accomplished through a pile of ugly custom javascript. All told, when the page rendered, it made 600 synchronous calls to the database.

Question on using content from other cshtml pages in razor

I've read a couple of articles on using asp.net mvc3 razor (which I am fairly new to). I have a couple of .cshmtl pages which are like shared content (e.g. header). They are basically just html pages with one or two divs etc.
To embed this in my main page, do I just use #renderPage("page address"). Do I also need a call to #renderbody? Do I need to specify the/a page in the layout property?
Thanksa
I would put the common elements in a layout (or perhaps a partial view rendered by the base layout). In fact, that's what I did in an application I am now building and it works quite nicely. The one issue is whether or not you need View Model data populated by the controller and passed to that partial view. I did, so I used a base controller and populated the common elements in the view model (all of those also inherited from a base class that had the common properties) and used sections and then in the sections renderered the partial view or not, depending on the view's need.
You can create a Partial View for each of these and call:
#Html.Partial("ViewName")
Or you can use sections, or this article on sections might help too.
As you may or may not know, ASP.NET accepts HTML tagging.
So why not include your .aspx file with the HTML include tag?
Here's how:
<!-- #include virtual="path to file/include-file.html" -->
Ex:
<!--#include virtual="header.aspx"-->
I do this all of the time when writing an ASP.NET website.
Just place it wherever you want the code, from the included page, to show up.

Setting access to remote in a cffunction includes the application.cfm page

When I set a cffunction's access to remote--so I can call it through AJAX--the call returns the HTML I have in my Application.cfm template.
Is there any way around this, or do I have to move the HTML out of Application.cfm?
This would be considered expected behavior. I'd suggest not outputting content within your Application.cfm. Consider using custom tags for wrapping your pages or better yet switch to using Application.cfc and use custom tags.

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