Hisham Elbreky

Coding With Windows Azure IaaS

Hisham El-bereky — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 20:04:48 GMT

This post will focus on some advanced programming topics concerned with IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) which provided as windows azure virtual machine (with its related resources like virtual disk and virtual network), you know that windows azure started as PaaS cloud platform but regarding to some business cases which need to have full control over their virtual machine, so windows azure directed toward providing IaaS.

Sometimes you will need to manage your cloud IaaS through code may be for these reasons:

Working on hyper-cloud system by providing bursting connector to windows azure virtual machines
Providing multi-tenant system which consume windows azure virtual machine
Automated process on your on-premises or cloud service which need to utilize some virtual resources

We are going to implement the following basic operation using C# code:

List images
Create virtual machine
List virtual machines
Restart virtual machine
Delete virtual machine

Before going to implement the above operations we need to prepare client side and windows azure subscription to communicate correctly by providing management certificate (x.509 v3 certificates) which permit client access to resources in your Windows Azure subscription, whilst requests made using the Windows Azure Service Management REST API require authentication against a certificate that you provide to Windows Azure

More info about setting management certificate located here. And to install .cer on other client machine you will need the .pfx file, or if not exist by exporting .cer as .pfx

Note: You will need to install .net 4.5 on your machine to try the code

So let start

This post built on the post sent by Michael Washam "Advanced Windows Azure IaaS – Demo Code", so I'm here to declare some points and to add new operation which is not exist in Michael's demo

The basic C# class object used here as client to azure REST API for IaaS service is HttpClient (Provides a base class for sending HTTP requests and receiving HTTP responses from a resource identified by a URI) this object must be initialized with the required data like certificate, headers and content if required.

Also I'd like to refer here that the code is based on using Asynchronous programming with calls to azure which enhance the performance and gives us the ability to work with complex calls which depends on more than one sub-call to achieve some operation

The following code explain how to get certificate and initializing HttpClient object with required data like headers and content

HttpClient GetHttpClient()

{

X509Store certificateStore = null;

X509Certificate2 certificate = null;

try

{

certificateStore = new X509Store(StoreName.My, StoreLocation.CurrentUser);

certificateStore.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly);

string thumbprint = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["CertThumbprint"];

var certificates = certificateStore.Certificates.Find(X509FindType.FindByThumbprint, thumbprint, false);

if (certificates.Count > 0)

{

certificate = certificates[0];

}

finally

{

if (certificateStore != null) certificateStore.Close();

}

WebRequestHandler handler = new WebRequestHandler();

if (certificate!= null)

{

handler.ClientCertificates.Add(certificate);

HttpClient httpClient = new HttpClient(handler);

//And to set required headers lik x-ms-version

httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("x-ms-version", "2012-03-01");

httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/xml"));

return httpClient;

}

return null;

}

Let us keep the object httpClient as reference object used to call windows azure REST API IaaS service. For each request operation we need to define:

Request URI
HTTP Method
Headers
Content body

(1) List images

The List OS Images operation retrieves a list of the OS images from the image repository

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/images]

Replace <subscription-id> with your windows Id

HTTP Method

GET (HTTP 1.1)

Headers

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Body

None.

C# Code

List<String> imageList = new List<String>();

//replace _subscriptionid with your WA subscription

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/images", _subscriptionid);

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

Stream responseStream = await http.GetStreamAsync(uri);

if (responseStream != null)

{

XDocument xml = XDocument.Load(responseStream);

var images = xml.Root.Descendants(ns + "OSImage").Where(i => i.Element(ns + "OS").Value == "Windows");

foreach (var image in images)

{

string img = image.Element(ns + "Name").Value;

imageList.Add(img);

}

More information about the REST call (Request/Response) located here on this link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj157191.aspx

(2) Create Virtual Machine

Creating virtual machine required service and deployment to be created first, so creating VM should be done through three steps incase hosted service and deployment is not created yet

Create hosted service, a container for service deployments in Windows Azure. A subscription may have zero or more hosted services
Create deployment, a service that is running on Windows Azure. A deployment may be running in either the staging or production deployment environment. It may be managed either by referencing its deployment ID, or by referencing the deployment environment in which it's running.
Create virtual machine, the previous two steps info required here in this step

I suggest here to use the same name for service, deployment and service to make it easy to manage virtual machines

Note: A name for the hosted service that is unique within Windows Azure. This name is the DNS prefix name and can be used to access the hosted service. For example: http://ServiceName.cloudapp.net//

2.1 Create service

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/hostedservices

HTTP Method

POST (HTTP 1.1)

Header

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Content-Type: application/xml

Body

More details about request body (and other information) are located here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg441304.aspx

C# code

The following method show how to create hosted service

async public Task<String> NewAzureCloudService(String ServiceName, String Location, String AffinityGroup, String subscriptionid)

{

String requestID = String.Empty;

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices", subscriptionid);

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

System.Text.ASCIIEncoding ae = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding();

byte[] svcNameBytes = ae.GetBytes(ServiceName);

String locationEl = String.Empty;

String locationVal = String.Empty;

if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(Location) == false)

{

locationEl = "Location";

locationVal = Location;

}

else

{

locationEl = "AffinityGroup";

locationVal = AffinityGroup;

}

XElement srcTree = new XElement("CreateHostedService",

new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "i", ns1),

new XElement("ServiceName", ServiceName),

new XElement("Label", Convert.ToBase64String(svcNameBytes)),

new XElement(locationEl, locationVal)

);

ApplyNamespace(srcTree, ns);

XDocument CSXML = new XDocument(srcTree);

HttpContent content = new StringContent(CSXML.ToString());

content.Headers.ContentType = new System.Net.Http.Headers.MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/xml");

HttpResponseMessage responseMsg = await http.PostAsync(uri, content);

if (responseMsg != null)

{

requestID = responseMsg.Headers.GetValues("x-ms-request-id").FirstOrDefault();

}

return requestID;

}

2.2 Create Deployment

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/hostedservices/<service-name>/deploymentslots/<deployment-slot-name>

<deployment-slot-name> with staging or production, depending on where you wish to deploy your service package

<service-name> provided as input from the previous step

HTTP Method

POST (HTTP 1.1)

Header

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Content-Type: application/xml

Body

More details about request body (and other information) are located here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee460813.aspx

C# code

The following method show how to create hosted service deployment

async public Task<String> NewAzureVMDeployment(String ServiceName, String VMName, String VNETName, XDocument VMXML, XDocument DNSXML)

{

String requestID = String.Empty;

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deployments", _subscriptionid, ServiceName);

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

XElement srcTree = new XElement("Deployment",

new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "i", ns1),

new XElement("Name", ServiceName),

new XElement("DeploymentSlot", "Production"),

new XElement("Label", ServiceName),

new XElement("RoleList", null)

);

if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(VNETName) == false)

{

srcTree.Add(new XElement("VirtualNetworkName", VNETName));

}

if(DNSXML != null)

{

srcTree.Add(new XElement("DNS", new XElement("DNSServers", DNSXML)));

}

XDocument deploymentXML = new XDocument(srcTree);

ApplyNamespace(srcTree, ns);

deploymentXML.Descendants(ns + "RoleList").FirstOrDefault().Add(VMXML.Root);

String fixedXML = deploymentXML.ToString().Replace(" xmlns=\"\"", "");

HttpContent content = new StringContent(fixedXML);

content.Headers.ContentType = new System.Net.Http.Headers.MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/xml");

HttpResponseMessage responseMsg = await http.PostAsync(uri, content);

if (responseMsg != null)

{

requestID = responseMsg.Headers.GetValues("x-ms-request-id").FirstOrDefault();

}

return requestID;

}

2.3 Create Virtual Machine

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/hostedservices/<cloudservice-name>/deployments/<deployment-name>/roles

<cloudservice-name> and <deployment-name> are provided as input from the previous steps

Http Method

POST (HTTP 1.1)

Header

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Content-Type: application/xml

Body

More details about request body (and other information) located here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj157186.aspx

C# code

async public Task<String> NewAzureVM(String ServiceName, String VMName, XDocument VMXML)

{

String requestID = String.Empty;

String deployment = await GetAzureDeploymentName(ServiceName);

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deployments/{2}/roles", _subscriptionid, ServiceName, deployment);

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

HttpContent content = new StringContent(VMXML.ToString());

content.Headers.ContentType = new System.Net.Http.Headers.MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/xml");

HttpResponseMessage responseMsg = await http.PostAsync(uri, content);

if (responseMsg != null)

{

requestID = responseMsg.Headers.GetValues("x-ms-request-id").FirstOrDefault();

}

return requestID;

}

(3) List Virtual Machines

To list virtual machine hosted on windows azure subscription we have to loop over all hosted services to get its hosted virtual machines

To do that we need to execute the following operations:

listing hosted services
listing hosted service Virtual machine

3.1 Listing Hosted Services

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/hostedservices

HTTP Method

GET (HTTP 1.1)

Headers

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Body

None.

More info about this HTTP request located here on this link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee460781.aspx

C# Code

async private Task<List<XDocument>> GetAzureServices(String subscriptionid)

{

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices ", subscriptionid);

List<XDocument> services = new List<XDocument>();

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

Stream responseStream = await http.GetStreamAsync(uri);

if (responseStream != null)

{

XDocument xml = XDocument.Load(responseStream);

var svcs = xml.Root.Descendants(ns + "HostedService");

foreach (XElement r in svcs)

{

XDocument vm = new XDocument(r);

services.Add(vm);

}

return services;

}

3.2 Listing Hosted Service Virtual Machines

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/hostedservices/<service-name>/deployments/<deployment-name>/roles/<role-name>

HTTP Method

GET (HTTP 1.1)

Headers

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Body

None.

More info about this HTTP request here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj157193.aspx

C# Code

async public Task<XDocument> GetAzureVM(String ServiceName, String VMName, String subscriptionid)

{

String deployment = await GetAzureDeploymentName(ServiceName);

XDocument vmXML = new XDocument();

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deployments/{2}/roles/{3}",

subscriptionid, ServiceName, deployment, VMName);

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

Stream responseStream = await http.GetStreamAsync(uri);

if (responseStream != null)

{

vmXML = XDocument.Load(responseStream);

}

return vmXML;

}

So the final method which can be used to list all virtual machines is:

async public Task<XDocument> GetAzureVMs()

{

List<XDocument> services = await GetAzureServices();

XDocument vms = new XDocument();

vms.Add(new XElement("VirtualMachines"));

ApplyNamespace(vms.Root, ns);

foreach (var svc in services)

{

string ServiceName = svc.Root.Element(ns + "ServiceName").Value;

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deploymentslots/{2}", _subscriptionid, ServiceName, "Production");

try

{

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

Stream responseStream = await http.GetStreamAsync(uri);

if (responseStream != null)

{

XDocument xml = XDocument.Load(responseStream);

var roles = xml.Root.Descendants(ns + "RoleInstance");

foreach (XElement r in roles)

{

XElement svcnameel = new XElement("ServiceName", ServiceName);

ApplyNamespace(svcnameel, ns);

r.Add(svcnameel); // not part of the roleinstance

vms.Root.Add(r);

}

catch (HttpRequestException http)

{

// no vms with cloud service

}

return vms;

}

(4) Restart Virtual Machine

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/hostedservices/<service-name>/deployments/<deployment-name>/roles/<role-name>/Operations

HTTP Method

POST (HTTP 1.1)

Headers

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Content-Type: application/xml

Body

<OperationType>RestartRoleOperation</OperationType>

</RestartRoleOperation>

More details about this http request here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj157197.aspx

C# Code

async public Task<String> RebootVM(String ServiceName, String RoleName)

{

String requestID = String.Empty;

String deployment = await GetAzureDeploymentName(ServiceName);

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deployments/{2}/roleInstances/{3}/Operations",

_subscriptionid, ServiceName, deployment, RoleName);

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

XElement srcTree = new XElement("RestartRoleOperation",

new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "i", ns1),

new XElement("OperationType", "RestartRoleOperation")

);

ApplyNamespace(srcTree, ns);

XDocument CSXML = new XDocument(srcTree);

HttpContent content = new StringContent(CSXML.ToString());

content.Headers.ContentType = new System.Net.Http.Headers.MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/xml");

HttpResponseMessage responseMsg = await http.PostAsync(uri, content);

if (responseMsg != null)

{

requestID = responseMsg.Headers.GetValues("x-ms-request-id").FirstOrDefault();

}

return requestID;

}

(5) Delete Virtual Machine

You can delete your hosted virtual machine by deleting its deployment, but I prefer to delete its hosted service also, so you can easily manage your virtual machines from code

5.1 Delete Deployment

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/< subscription-id >/services/hostedservices/< service-name >/deployments/<Deployment-Name>

HTTP Method

DELETE (HTTP 1.1)

Headers

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Body

None.

C# code

async public Task<HttpResponseMessage> DeleteDeployment( string deploymentName)

{

string xml = string.Empty;

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deployments/{2}", _subscriptionid, deploymentName, deploymentName);

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

HttpResponseMessage responseMessage = await http.DeleteAsync(uri);

return responseMessage;

}

5.2 Delete Hosted Service

Request URI

https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/hostedservices/<service-name>

HTTP Method

DELETE (HTTP 1.1)

Headers

x-ms-version: 2012-03-01

Body

None.

C# code

async public Task<HttpResponseMessage> DeleteService(string serviceName)

{

string xml = string.Empty;

String uri = String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}", _subscriptionid, serviceName);

Log.Info("Windows Azure URI (http DELETE verb): " + uri, typeof(VMManager));

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

HttpResponseMessage responseMessage = await http.DeleteAsync(uri);

return responseMessage;

}

And the following is the method which can used to delete both of deployment and service

async public Task<string> DeleteVM(string vmName)

{

string responseString = string.Empty;

// as a convention here in this post, a unified name used for service, deployment and VM instance to make it easy to manage VMs

HttpClient http = GetHttpClient();

HttpResponseMessage responseMessage = await DeleteDeployment(vmName);

if (responseMessage != null)

{

string requestID = responseMessage.Headers.GetValues("x-ms-request-id").FirstOrDefault();

OperationResult result = await PollGetOperationStatus(requestID, 5, 120);

if (result.Status == OperationStatus.Succeeded)

{

responseString = result.Message;

HttpResponseMessage sResponseMessage = await DeleteService(vmName);

if (sResponseMessage != null)

{

OperationResult sResult = await PollGetOperationStatus(requestID, 5, 120);

responseString += sResult.Message;

}

else

{

responseString = result.Message;

}

return responseString;

}

Note: This article is subject to be updated

Hisham

References

Advanced Windows Azure IaaS – Demo Code

Windows Azure Service Management REST API Reference

Introduction to the Azure Platform

Representational state transfer

Asynchronous Programming with Async and Await (C# and Visual Basic)

HttpClient Class

WebSockets and Web Pages Two Way Communication

Hisham El-bereky — Sun, 22 May 2011 21:58:00 GMT

Suppose that you have to design a web application (i.e. stock exchange) which should be designed in the way that the client should be updated instantly with any change submitted by other clients, and also you have to implement this design using ASP.NET (or other web apps technologies).
As you know that HTTP protocol is stateless protocol based on request/response using non-permanent connection with server which is not longer than your request/response time, there is no problem to implement this type of applications using windows forms and WCF full duplex, but the challenge here is to implement it using web pages technology.

So what is the scenario that you can use to implement this design using ASP.NET Pages?
- Periodical checking the server side for any updates from other clients (also the same will be done by other clients) which will lead into hitting server performance with direct proportion with transactions number, also this is not corresponding with real time apps like stock exchange due to the delay of periodical checking and other issues, So this scenario is not practical scenario for this type of apps.
- The above scenario will leading you to think about something that let server side updating the subscribed clients with any change between each other, but again the nature of HTTP protocol will not help you to do that whilst the request direction always from client to server, some developers resolved this issue with some tricky way by letting the connection opened between server and client, and to do that your server side should be in continuous response until you ending your session with server. This scenario will resolve our issue concerned with HTTP protocol; but still complex to be implemented and hard to maintain.
- Another scenario is to use the new invented technique “WebSockets” standardized by W3C and supported mainly by latest version of browsers like chrome and fire fox, also there is a Lab by Microsoft(part of HTML 5 Labs) to be supported in IE, WebSockets is a technique for two-way communication over one (TCP) socket, using WebSockets is the best scenario to implement Stock Change app based on web technology and also it will be the future of this type of apps, this solution will save a lot of time and work around to introduce real-time apps through web browsers.

What is WebSockets? WebSockets is a technology providing for bi-directional, full-duplex communications channels, over a single Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) socket, it is designed to be implemented in web browsers and web servers, The WebSocket API is being standardized by the W3C, and the WebSocket protocol is being standardized by the IETF

Good WebSockets links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSockets
http://dev.w3.org/html5/websockets/
http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/prototypes/websockets/websockets/info

DB Documentation Tool

Hisham El-bereky — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:25:00 GMT

Recently I have uploaded new project to codeplex site, DbDocument or DbDoc project is a helper tool used side by side with MS SQL server management studio tool, you can design your DB Tables in visualized way through Diagrams and then use “DbDoc” tool to generate design document in MS Word format, the generated file can be used in design review process or as history reference, the tool facilitate and reduce the time of writing DB structure document

the current version is not so sophisticated which is intend to generate word document in table format with all tables in DB illustrating its structure and constraints, but for now it seems to be good.

For more details check DbDoc document or go immediately to DbDoc home page http://dbdocument.codeplex.com/

WebShell, new web applications framework

Hisham El-bereky — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 22:57:00 GMT

I have released the first beta version of WebShell framework on Codeplex, Which aims to facilitate and improve the process of development by providing new and easy way to build module/component driven applications based on request driven design pattern; so re-usability, integration, system updates and deployment will be done smoothly and faster with respect to market demands changes.

WebShell has a lot of benefits

UI template is cross technologies and platforms
Rich UI
Component driven design pattern, so reusability and integration with other system is a target
Easy to plug/unplug components for systems designed using WebShell
Fast to be in track with market changes

for more information about WebShell you can visit its page at codeplex http://webcommands.codeplex.com/

appreciated any volunteers to go with me to push WebShell to realistic world, volunteer should be aware about inversion of control, RESTful architecture and JQuery.

Game program for kids less than 2 years :)

Hisham El-bereky — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:00:00 GMT

My daughter Mariam (=Mary) one year old always coming to my pc when I doing some work and climbing me then hitting keyboard randomly (oh, the pc gone to be like small cat fall in the pool :( )
I’m decided to save my pc (as possible :) ) then I developed this simple game for kids less than 2 years that thinking the pc is a toy .

Simply the game depend on kid keyboard hitting where the program catch keys events through ProcessCmdKey function by overriding it, game draw different sahpes with different size with different colors in random way, also with each key stroke there is a sound effect.

Program developed using C# language .net 2 you can download the source from here

Enjoy.. don not forget to play with your kid you are the big toy to him

Help links
How To Make a Windows Form App Truly Full Screen (and Hide Taskbar) in C#
By Dejan.Vesic
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/FullScreenDotNetApp.aspx
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Display System Fonts
By John O Donnell September 20, 2001
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/jodonnell/DisplaySystemFonts11292005014642AM/DisplaySystemFonts.aspx

Eye On .Net - episode 4

Hisham El-bereky — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:57:00 GMT

Brad Abrams

- What is .NET RIA Services?

- Business Apps Example for Silverlight 3 RTM and .NET RIA Services July Update, part1, part2, part3, part4, part5, part6, part7,part8

- Simple Example of Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) in Silverlight

Rob Bagby

- Azure Application, part1(intro), part2(Access Azure Table Storage), part3(Expose (REST) Web Service And Consume in Silverlight)

- Building An Azure Application From The Ground Up

Dave Ward

- Improving jQuery’s JSON performance and security

- Never worry about ASP.NET AJAX’s .d again

- 11 keystrokes that made my jQuery selector run 10x faster

Joe Stagner

- I’m asked, how did you learn what you know ?

- Resources for learning the ADO.NET Entity Framework

- More Entity Framework Resources

Oleg Sych

- Text Template Transformation Toolkit

- T4 Architecture

- T4 Template Design

- Code Generation with Visual Studio Templates

Rick Strahl

- Introducing CodePaste.NET

- How do ASP.NET Application_ Events Work

- Creating Visual Studio Templates from your Web Projects

Phil Haack

- JSON Hijacking

- Is It Too Late To Change JSON?

Web Developer Top up for Next Web Generation

Hisham El-bereky — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:42:00 GMT

Web developers will need for some top up there web dev experience with new frameworks and technologies that will be required by new web development Trend, Web Developer should know about:

1- Javascript frameworks (Jquery,Dojo ….)

2- Service Oriented Architecting (SOA), Web Services will play the first role in new trend

3- REST Architecture

4- Cloud Computing

5- Model Driven Architecture

6- Rich internet Applications (RIA) and User Experience (UX)

7- Web 3.0 (ie. Google gears)

The following is my view about Web based applications Trend

Software applications moves toward Web due to web user experience and other Web based applications benefits at least user do zero effort to move from one version to another (Easy Deployment) and the big benefit is that web app is a client-server model by default and other advantage of web based applications.

Number of users that use world wide web is in increasing due to technological progress and social changes, and then web applications should be ready for the upcoming users that will hit Web App Server, Web based Application should have architecture that will fit new changes and requirements.

There will be two trends in web app UI architecting :

1- Server Pages, Rendering all UI in server side by using Server pages and server web controls.

2- Native html and JavaScript frameworks, we can say bye bye server pages or server UI rendering (don’t worry about dynamic content the architecture pattern will explain how to do that).

I’m with second trend “Native html and JavaScript frameworks” where is the right and nature path, most server performance is consumed by UI rendering and also bugs of development comes mostly from UI and developers founding themselves doing client side scripting, with “Native html and JavaScript frameworks” there will be a thin layer on server side dealing with client side UI throw Web service.

Swaplist [JQuery Plugin]

Hisham El-bereky — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:36:00 GMT

A few days ago I developed Jquery plugin, it was very useful to use it in client side, the plugin generate UI for two lists and give you ability to swap items between them
Plugin have methods to initialize it with data or get data from it, data is represented in plugin with JSON format

Plugin methods:
1- SetListData(Data):

the input represented in json format as a list of items for first list, like { items: [{ key: 'item1', value: '1' }, { key: 'item2', value: '2'}] };

2- GetSelectedItems():

returns second list items in json format, like { items: [{ key: 'item1', value: '1' }]};

3- SetListClass(CssClassName):

takes class name as input, this method concerned about setting css for lists

How to use?
1- add div element to your form,

2- use ready function to assign plug-in into div class "swaplist" or for your defined class in your div element, $().ready(function() {
var data = { items: [{ key: 'item1', value: '1' }, { key: 'item2', value: '2'}] };
$(".swaplist").SetListData(data);
$(".swaplist").SetListClass("listCss");

});

To download it use the following link http://plugins.jquery.com/project/SwapList

JQuery Tips

Hisham El-bereky — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:52:00 GMT

Selectors:
Getting text box value
$(“#TextBoxId”).val();
Chang or set label text
$(“#LabelId”).text(“Your Text”);
Set control CSS “i.e td border width”
$(“#td_id”).css('border-width', '1px');

Animation:
Display DIV element with animation
$("#div-id").show("slow");
$("#div-id").hide("slow");

Swap Items between two lists
$(“#list1-id :selected”).remove().appendTo(“#list2-id”);

Ajax:
Passing parameters to asp.net web services
var prm1=”value”;
var prm2=2;
$.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: "/AjaxWebMethods.aspx/WebMethod ",
        data: '{"parameter1":"' + prm1+ '”,"parameter1":"' + prm2+ '"}',
        contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        dataType: "json",
        success: function(msg) {
            /*your code*/
        },
        error: function(err) { /*your code*/}
    });
Look for data line

An entry to JQuery

Hisham El-bereky — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:26:00 GMT

JQuery is a JavaScript library simplify using JavaScript in client side, with JQuery you can handle document objects where you can select and change style or behavior in easy way, I think JQuery as a successful JavaScript Library will play a big role in the next days of web development and that is makes Microsoft embedding JQuery in ASP.NET AJAX.

JQuery Site :

http://docs.jquery.com/Main_Page

http://docs.jquery.com/How_jQuery_Works

http://docs.jquery.com/Core

http://docs.jquery.com/Selectors

http://docs.jquery.com/Events

http://docs.jquery.com/Effects

http://docs.jquery.com/Ajax

http://docs.jquery.com/UI

Blogs :

http://encosia.com/category/jquery/ -Dave Ward

Article:

http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/jQuery/default.aspx - An introduction to jQuery By Rick Strahl

Books:

Manning.jQuery.in.Action – By John Resig

Simple And Generic Web Service Proxy Using HttpWebRequest/HttpWebResponse objects

Hisham El-bereky — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:44:57 GMT

The below class is a simple layer that can be used to access web service methods, it's depend on three tricks (1)initializing HttpWebRequest object, (2)encoding and passing request data that represent web method input parameters and (3)get response from web method.

The class WSProxy only have two methods the first one is [CallWebMethod] that can call any web method with any number of paramters depend on it's input parameter the dictionary object that preserve method parameters in form of key/value, the second method is [CreateHttpRequestData] that is responsible about encoding request data (parameters with it's values) to send it with request.

public class WSProxy
    {
        public string CallWebMethod(string webServiceURL, string webMethod, Dictionary<string, string> dicParameters)
        {
            try
            {
                byte[] _requestData = this.CreateHttpRequestData(dicParameters);

                string uri = webServiceURL + "/" + webMethod;
                HttpWebRequest _httpRequest = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(uri);
                _httpRequest.Method = "POST";
                _httpRequest.KeepAlive = false;
                _httpRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
                _httpRequest.ContentLength = _requestData.Length;
                _httpRequest.Timeout = 30000;
                HttpWebResponse _httpResponse = null;
                string _response = string.Empty;

                _httpRequest.GetRequestStream().Write(_requestData, 0, _requestData.Length);
                _httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)_httpRequest.GetResponse();
                System.IO.Stream _baseStream = _httpResponse.GetResponseStream();
                System.IO.StreamReader _responseStreamReader = new System.IO.StreamReader(_baseStream);
                _response = _responseStreamReader.ReadToEnd();
                _responseStreamReader.Close();

                return _response;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw new Exception(ex.Message);
            }
        }

        private byte[] CreateHttpRequestData(Dictionary<string, string> dic)
        {
            StringBuilder _sbParameters = new StringBuilder();
            foreach (string param in dic.Keys)
            {
                _sbParameters.Append(param);//key => parameter name
                _sbParameters.Append('=');
                _sbParameters.Append(dic[param]);//key value
                _sbParameters.Append('&');
            }
            _sbParameters.Remove(_sbParameters.Length - 1, 1);

UTF8Encoding encoding = new UTF8Encoding();

return encoding.GetBytes(_sbParameters.ToString());

}
}

You can download this demo application that demonstrate WSProxy Class functionality

Eye On .Net - episode 3

Hisham El-bereky — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:41:41 GMT

Blogs

Scott Guthrie

ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 Release

Dave Ward [Encosia]

Using jQuery to directly call ASP.NET AJAX page methods

Use jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX to build a client side Repeater

Scott Hanselman

A Back To Basics Case Study: Implementing HTTP File Upload with ASP.NET MVC including Tests and Mocks

Back to Basics - This is not the object you're looking...wait, oh, it is the object

Videos

ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions

Downloads

Hands on Labs for Developing Applications on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Sample Entity Framework Provider for Oracle

Internet Explorer 8 - Webslices

Hisham El-bereky — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:33:30 GMT

WebSlices is a new feature will be added to Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 it's allow users to subscribe to portions of a Web page.

Users commonly visit many Web sites several times a day to see if there are new updates. RSS feeds make this experience easier: Users can subscribe to updates and view summaries of them without having to navigate to each site individually. Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers supports subscribing to feeds today and adds support for WebSlices.

WebSlices are a new feature for Web sites to connect with users by allowing users to subscribe to content directly within a Web page. WebSlices behave just as feeds do, where clients can subscribe to get updates and notification of changes.

To Dealing with this new feature as a developer kindly follow this link of WebSlices Whitepapers

Eye On .NET (2)

Hisham El-bereky — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:27:00 GMT

Blogs

Scott Hanselman

The Weekly Source Code : OpenID Edition, LINQ to Regular Expressions and Processing in Javascript

TypeConverters: There's not enough TypeDescripter.GetConverter in the world

11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation

Joshua Flanagan

Readable Regular Expressions

Joe Sagner

Tutorials at - Defaultdotaspx.com - Mustafa Basgun

Intellisense for jQuery

Charlie Calvert

Where are the Visual Studio 2008 Keybinding Posters?

ADO.NET Team Blog

What's New in the SP1 Beta for LINQ to SQL?

Recent ADO.NET Entity Framework provider news - Demos and downloads

Articles

The Difference between GET and POST

Writing to the Event Log

Entity Framework and Lazy Loading

Save and Retrieve Images from the Database using ASP.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET 3.5

Building a File Service

SQL Server Indexes : http://www.sqlteam.com/article/sql-server-indexes-the-basics, http://www.odetocode.com/Articles/70.aspx

Client Application Services : Part 1, Paert 2

Fast, Scalable, Streaming AJAX Proxy - continuously deliver data from across domains

Designing Application Using Test Driven Development

HTTP Handlers and HTTP Modules in ASP.NET

Managing Configuration Data Programmatically in ASP.NET 2.0

Announcement

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta

.NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit

Visual Studio extensions for SharePoint

Recent ADO.NET Entity Framework provider news Demos and downloads

ADO.NET Entity Framework (Links, Videos And Downloads)

Hisham El-bereky — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:21:00 GMT

ADO.NET Entity Framework is a new technique introduced by ADO.NET team that will be helps developers to eliminate the impedance mismatch between data models and between languages, EF announced as a part of Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta & .NET 3.5 SP1 Beta.

ADO.NET EF is not just working as a tool for O/R Mapping it's extends the reach of ADO.NET, providing a new data model that will be the foundation for a range of data services moving forward, and enhances the common ADO.NET provider model enabling a LINQ programming experience against third party databases. The Entity Framework designer in Visual Studio works with third party databases as well and enables developers to visualize the data model being used by the application.

the following links have a lot about ADO.NET Entity Framework:

ADO.NET team blog

The ADO.NET Entity Framework Overview

Videos:

How Do I... ? New Entity Framework Videos

ADO.NET Entity Designer Video - CTP 2

ADO.NET Entity Framework: What. How. Why

Downloads:

ADO.NET Entity Framework & LINQ to Relational Data

ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta & .NET 3.5 SP1 Beta

Recent ADO.NET Entity Framework provider news demos and downloads