Last year we moved all our new functionality to ASP.NET MVC.
However we still have a load of legacy WebForms pages with lots of JavaScript code, and we're not going to get the chance to upgrade them any time soon.
More recently we also moved to ASP.NET 4, and that seems to have broken a load of the JavaScript code on these legacy pages.
Where before the client id would be:
ctl001_masterControlName_panelControlName_controlWeWant
Now they have become:
ctl001_masterControlName_panelControlName_controlWeWant_0
Where does that _0 suffix come from? There's only one controlWeWant in panelControlName, so the suffix adds no value.
I know hardcoded client ids are a bad idea with WebForms; one of the reasons we moved to ASP.NET MVC was the awful HTML produced by WebForms. However for this legacy code we're stuck with it, and I'd rather not go changing it (until the day comes when we have some free time to do it properly).
Why is ASP.NET 4 adding the _0 suffix at all?
Can I turn it off?
Is there another way to avoid it?
Check out What is New in ASP.NET 4.0 - ClientID Generation for a Cleaner MarkUp. It explains some new functionality in ASP.NET 4.0 when it comes to id generation.
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Question : Downside of using Web forms and MVC in same sitecore instance.
Current Situation : We have a Sitecore 7.2 instance developed using MVC and Glass Mapper. We want to reuse existing component which is already developed in Web Forms using the same sitecore version that we are currently using. What we have done so far: To achieve this we did a small POC and were able to achieve the same. We referred below link at Git to achieve this POC We found few blogs where people have done this but always say that it may not work all the time (and not highlighted which scenarios they fail). What are the drawbacks or possible difficulties that we could face doing this ?.It will be helpful if you can highlight as For example :Workflow does not work or personalization does not work etc. Thanks
I am currently running a Sitecore 7.2 instance with both WebForms and MVC (we actually went the other way- our old code is Webform and with a recent redeisgn we moved to MVC) and its doable, but kind of messy.
The biggest issues we've run into have been when we want to display webform and mvc content on the same page, or have the two code bases communicate in any way. Attempting to have renderings calling both webform and mvc code on the same page was disaster. Likewise trying to have webform-only pages communicate with mvc-only pages (eg. building out submenues, getting field values, etc).
In a way, what ended up happening with us was we had essentially two sites - the webforms and mvc versions - and the two never really merged well together. Our project plan was to move off of Webforms to full MVC, so we accepted this as a reality. I'm not sure how well a permanent mvc-webform crossover solution would work, to be honest.
We had some good luck using the following resources: https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/mixing-aspnet-webforms-and-aspnet-mvc
http://www.sitecore.net/Learn/Blogs/Technical-Blogs/John-West-Sitecore-Blog/Posts/2012/06/Using-Web-Forms-and-MVC-in-a-Single-Solution-with-the-Sitecore-ASPNET-CMS.aspx
It's been messy for us, lots of time keeping pages and code apart, and we are planning on cutting out webforms completely in the near future and going full-mvc. But running both is very doable.
The title pretty much explains the meat of the question. I'm debating on starting new development using MVC and the Coldbox Framework (or possibly another), but I'm not sure if the old applications that do not use the framework will work properly.
The way things are setup, I do not want to go back and redesign the old applications on the server to MVC. There are just too many and they are just too large. I do however, want to work on all new development (not application extensions) utilizing the MVC architecture.
Server runs on ColdFusion 9.
Thanks.
most mvc framework will use a front controller, e.g. index.cfm?event=x.y, so at least you'll need to change all the href, unless you're also doing URL rewrite, otherwise your SEO will tank.
Here's the situation. We're adding a new application to our suite of webapps based on WebForms and so I felt this would be the perfect time to introduce MVC.
I did all the research about intermingling the two and got the project all set up using an Area that uses MVC routes while the rest of the (visual studio) project runs with web forms the way it's been running.
Master pages were converted to Razor layouts, not too bad because there was only one master page that was shared between every application.
The problem I've run into now is reusing user controls. We have dozens of custom user controls, many of them fairly complex, that are reused throughout all of our applications. Most of them (especially ones that would be difficult to port) do a fair amount with ViewState and postbacks.
If it were just a matter of rewriting these in MVC, the one time cost would be less than ideal but not terrible. But since the existing apps need to be maintained and updated as well, it seems like maintaining 2 versions of the same behaviour using entirely different paradigms would be a huge drain on productivity.
My gut says there isn't really a good solution and we may have to abandon the idea of going to MVC for this project and stick with webforms, but I wanted to see if the SO community has any insight on what to do in this scenario.
If you have the budget to rewrite those server side controls using the MVC paradigm that would be the best way to go. If not, you could still embed them into existing classic WebForms pages and which would communicate with the new MVC application using standard HTTP/HTML techniques: form posts, sending ids through query string parameters, iframes, cookies, HTML 5 storages, etc... One thing's for sure though: try to avoid putting those server side controls in your MVC views. You will end up with some hybrid application that is neither proper ASP.NET MVC nor a proper WebForms which would be a disaster.
Personally I had to do this same migration multiple times and I didn't bother mixing classic WebForms with MVC in the same application using Areas or some other techniques. At the end of the day it might turn into a nightmare trying to make those two exist together. It's always one of the two: I have the budget and I rewrite from scratch properly or I don't have the budget and I do the new stuff properly using ASP.NET MVC and try to interact with the existing application.
I find it easier to simply start a separate MVC application which depending on the interaction I am looking for would use different methods for integrating functionality from the existing WebForms application.
I am not quite familiar with the complexity and details of your scenario so it is difficult to provide an objective answer but the possibility of continuing to write new code based on the existing WebForms server side controls and not doing any MVC at all for this project might also be a good solution. Writing a new application on ASP.NET MVC just for the sake of it might not always be the best choice.
Asp.net MVC 3 preview 1 was released at the end of last month. Are there any new features you are excited about or any features you would like to see before it is fully released?
Full support for Controllers with Generic Parameters
public GenericController<SomeType> : Controller
Generic controllers are quite possibly the greatest MVC timesaver if your doing a lot or business CRUD. There are so many similarities between the Add methods of almost every MVC project that it makes sense to abstract these operations out in a Controller that fits all scenarios.
Right now its a little hacky to create a generic controller. The MVC engine always gets the name wrong (GenericCo vs. Generic) and without full support plugin and libraries that interact with controllers just fall over when they encounter a generic one.
Make Dropdowns easier to work with
As a professional MVC tag watcher I've noticed that working with dropdowns is one of the most repeated questions on SO. The amount of Dropdown questions is a strong indication that something should be done to make it easier or less ... complex?
make checkbox list easy to work with
add T4MVC to the official release
add official helpers for OData
support one javascript library either MS Ajax or jQuery(preferably)
I wish they can add something to help developer to migrate their previous ASP.NET WebForms application.
Can it easily be combined with jQuery, (ASP.NET) Ajax, ASP.NET webforms, other frameworks.
What about pulling dynamic code from ASP.NET MVC into for example classic ASP?
Does the MVC model mean that it is easy to customize code?
Background:
I have some experience that it can lead to problems to integrate frameworks relying on JavaScript with each other?
We have a classic ASP where we write new stuff in ASP.NET, and include .aspx code in the ASP files.
I am looking for some OS frameworks for stuff we need, and i think MVC based ones should be easier to adopt (KIGG)
ASP.NET MVC ships with jQuery as the default javascript framework, so no worries there. There aren't really any ties in the framework itself to jQuery so you could also switch it out with a framework of your choice. MVC comes with it's own AJAX implementation that builds on the base ASP.NET Ajax implementation (at least in javascript), so there is AJAX support but I think you'll find that it's different -- no UpdatePanels, for instance -- but you're able to do similar things.
You can mix WebForms with MVC, but you'll need to set up IgnoreRoutes for those URLs so they don't get processed. I confess that I haven't found a need to do this yet, but then I don't use third-party controls. That might be an area where, at least for now, you still need some WebForms. I've never used classic ASP and likely won't so I can't help you there.
You can use any Javascript framework with MVC, they have included Jquery as the default but any can work with it.
As far as flexibility, we have deployed a working site with ASP.NET webforms, MVC and .NET 1.1 libraries, so yes it is flexible.
In our experience ASP.NET MVC is the best thing MS have done for web development, especially if you like to control closely your html output and use web standards in your layout and design. We have used it for 6 Months and we are NEVER going back to web forms.
Have fun!