Jamil Hallal's Blog

System.InvalidOperationException: jsdebug Web Service method name is not valid

2013-05-07T20:08:00Z

If you are getting a 'web service undefined' error when calling a web service from Javascript which is defined inside the ScriptManager tag like so:

<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server">
<Services>
<asp:ServiceReference Path="~/Services/WebService.asmx" InlineScript="True" />
</Services>
</asp:ScriptManager>

Actual Error:

System.InvalidOperationException: jsdebug Web Service method name is not valid.

at System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpServerProtocol.Initialize()

at System.Web.Services.Protocols.ServerProtocolFactory.Create(Type type, HttpContext context

Solution:

To resolve this issue, run the following command line:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319>aspnet_regiis -i

Could not load type System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule

2013-05-07T11:19:00Z

If you install DotNet framework 4.0 on IIS server and then enable .NET 3.0 or 3.5 WCF features, you might see following error when browse your application site made of ASP.NET 4.0 (or run on ASP.NET 4.0 application pool).

Could not load type ‘System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule' from assembly ‘System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089′.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type ‘System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule' from assembly ‘System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089′.

Solution:

To resolve this issue, run the following command line: aspnet_regiis.exe /iru

The Aspnet_regiis.exe file can be found in one of the following locations:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319 (on a 64-bit computer)

Displaying Summary Information (sum or total) in the GridView's Footer

2012-07-20T05:52:00Z

Challenge

"I have a GridView and I need to show the aggregate sum of a column in the footer row"

Introduction

In this article I will go through steps to enable aggregation sum (total) of a column in the asp.net GridView Footer.

Step1: Prepare Database Connection

In this article I used the AdventureWorks Database and I will query table "PurchaseOrderDetail".

In the web.config set the connection string as following:

</connectionStrings>

Step2: Prepare the aspx Page

<title>Displaying Summary Information in the GridView's Footer</title>

.Gridview

{

font-family:Verdana;

font-size:10pt;

font-weight:normal;

color:black;

}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<div>

<asp:GridView ID="gvPurchaseOrderDetail" CssClass="Gridview" HeaderStyle-BackColor="#61A6F8"

HeaderStyle-ForeColor="White" HeaderStyle-Font-Bold="true" DataKeyNames="ProductID"

runat="server" ShowFooter="true" AllowPaging="true" PageSize="5" AutoGenerateColumns="false"

DataSourceID="sqldsPurchaseOrderDetail" OnRowDataBound="gvPurchaseOrderDetail_RowDataBound">

<asp:BoundField DataField="ProductID" HeaderText="Product ID" />

<asp:BoundField DataField="PurchaseOrderDetailID" HeaderText="Purchase Order ID" />

<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Order Quantity">

<asp:Label ID="lblOrderQty" runat="server" Text='<%#Eval("OrderQty") %>' />

</ItemTemplate>

<asp:Label ID="lbltxtTotal" runat="server" Text="Total Price" />

</FooterTemplate>

</asp:TemplateField>

<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Price">

<asp:Label ID="lblPrice" runat="server" />

</ItemTemplate>

<asp:Label ID="lblTotal" runat="server" />

</FooterTemplate>

</asp:TemplateField>

</Columns>

</asp:GridView>

<asp:SqlDataSource ID="sqldsPurchaseOrderDetail" runat="server" SelectCommand="select * from [AdventureWorks].[Purchasing].[PurchaseOrderDetail]" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:dbconnection %>"></asp:SqlDataSource>

</div>

</form>

</body>

</html>

Step3: Prepare Code Behind

decimal total = 0;

protected void gvPurchaseOrderDetail_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)

{

if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)

{

Label lblPrice = (Label)e.Row.FindControl("lblPrice");

decimal price = Convert.ToDecimal(DataBinder.Eval(e.Row.DataItem, "UnitPrice")) * Convert.ToDecimal(DataBinder.Eval(e.Row.DataItem, "OrderQty"));

lblPrice.Text = price.ToString();

total += price;

}

if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.Footer)

{

Label lblTotal = (Label)e.Row.FindControl("lblTotal");

lblTotal.Text = total.ToString();

}

Result:

Configure Check-Out Settings - How to avoid multiple checkouts in TFS 2010

2012-03-19T12:23:00Z

Administrators of Team Foundation version control can configure source control check-out settings to avoid multiple checkouts in a project maintained in TFS 2010. To configure check-out settings, you must have the Edit project-level information set to Allow.

Make sure you are a Project Administrator
Open Visual Studio 2010
Open Team Explorer and select the team project for which you want to configure check-out settings
Right click on the your project name in Team Explorer
Select Team Project Settings from the sub menu select Source Control
Make sure that “Enable multiple check-out” is unchecked.

Check if Point is inside a Polygon using SQL

2011-12-27T10:53:00Z

Using the geospatial SQL functions you can check if a point (with a given X,Y) is included inside a polygon

Example:

Declare @point geometry
Declare @polygon geometry
SET @point = geometry::STGeomFromText('POINT (-88.22 41.50000001)', 4326)
SET @polygon = geometry::STGeomFromText('POLYGON ((-88.2 41.5, -88.2 41.6, -88.3 41.6, -88.3 41.5, -88.2 41.5))', 4326)--124
Select @point.STIntersection(@polygon).ToString()

Result:

POINT (-88.220000000670552 41.500000009313226)

References:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jhallal/archive/2011/12/27/geospatial-data-in-sql-server-2008.aspx

Geospatial Data in SQL Server 2008

2011-12-27T06:43:00Z

Introduction

The spatial data type in SQL server 2008 allow you to store geospatial data which deals with the location of a point, line polygon... in a three dimensional space.

SQL Server 2008 supports two spatial data types:

Geometry : Stores data in projected planar surfaces
Geography : Stores data in an ellipsoidal model

Spatial Data Types

Point: Discrete location on the surface of the planet, represented by an x-y coordinate pair and may additionally have an elevation Z and a measure M.

LineString: A LineString is a collection of points. However this differs from the Multipoint object, as the points are in sequence and the LineString object also represents the line segments connecting the points.

MultiLineString: A MultiLineString is simply a collection of LineStrings.

Polygon: A Polygon is a collection of points representing a two dimensional surface. A Polygon may consist of a exterior ring and a number of interior rings. For a Polygon object to be a valid instance the interior rings cannot cross one another.

MultiPolygon: A MultiPolygon is a collection of Polygons.

GeometryCollection: A GeometryCollection is a collection of geometry (or geography) objects.

Geospatial SQL functions

STRelate: The following example uses STRelate() to test two geometry instances for spatial disjoint using an explicit DE-9IM pattern.

DECLARE @g geometry;
DECLARE @h geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('LINESTRING(0 2, 2 0, 4 2)', 0);
SET @h = geometry::STGeomFromText('POINT(5 5)', 0);
SELECT @g.STRelate(@h, 'FF*FF****');

STDisjoint: The following example uses STDisjoint() to test two geometry instances for spatial disjoint.

DECLARE @g geometry;
DECLARE @h geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('LINESTRING(0 2, 2 0, 4 2)', 0);
SET @h = geometry::STGeomFromText('POINT(1 1)', 0);
SELECT @g.STDisjoint(@h);

STIntersects: The following example uses STIntersects() to determine if two geometry instances intersect each other.

DECLARE @g geometry;
DECLARE @h geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('LINESTRING(0 2, 2 0, 4 2)', 0);
SET @h = geometry::STGeomFromText('POINT(1 1)', 0);
SELECT @g.STIntersects(@h);

STTouches: The following example uses STTouches() to test two geometry instances to see if they touch.

DECLARE @g geometry;
DECLARE @h geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('LINESTRING(0 2, 2 0, 4 2)', 0);
SET @h = geometry::STGeomFromText('POINT(1 1)', 0);
SELECT @g.STTouches(@h);

STCrosses: The following example uses STCrosses() to test two geometry instances to see if they cross.

DECLARE @g geometry;
DECLARE @h geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('LINESTRING(0 2, 2 0)', 0);
SET @h = geometry::STGeomFromText('LINESTRING(0 0, 2 2)', 0);
SELECT @g.STCrosses(@h);

STWithin: The following example uses STWithin() to test two geometry instances to see if the first instance is completely within the second instance.

DECLARE @g geometry;
DECLARE @h geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('POLYGON((0 0, 2 0, 2 2, 0 2, 0 0))', 0);
SET @h = geometry::STGeomFromText('POLYGON((1 1, 3 1, 3 3, 1 3, 1 1))', 0);
SELECT @g.STWithin(@h);

STContains: The following example uses STContains() to test two geometry instances to see if the first instance contains the second instance.

DECLARE @g geometry;
DECLARE @h geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('POLYGON((0 0, 2 0, 2 2, 0 2, 0 0))', 0);
SET @h = geometry::STGeomFromText('POINT(1 1)', 0);
SELECT @g.STContains(@h);

STOverlaps: The following example uses STOverlaps() to test two geometry instances for overlap.

STBuffer: The following example creates a LineString geography instance. It then uses STBuffer() to return the region within 1 meter of the instance.

DECLARE @g geography;
SET @g = geography::STGeomFromText('LINESTRING(-122.360 47.656, -122.343 47.656)', 4326);
SELECT @g.STBuffer(1).ToString();

STConvexHull: The following example uses STConvexHull() to find the convex hull of a non-convex Polygon geometry instance.

DECLARE @g geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('POLYGON((0 0, 0 2, 1 1, 2 2, 2 0, 0 0))', 0);
SELECT @g.STConvexHull().ToString();

STIntersection: The following example uses STIntersection() to compute the intersection of two polygons.

DECLARE @g geometry;
DECLARE @h geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('POLYGON((0 0, 0 2, 2 2, 2 0, 0 0))', 0);
SET @h = geometry::STGeomFromText('POLYGON((1 1, 3 1, 3 3, 1 3, 1 1))', 0);
SELECT @g.STIntersection(@h).ToString();

STUnion: The following example uses STUnion() to compute the union of two Polygon instances.

STGeomFromText: The following example uses STGeomeFromText() to create a geometry instance.

DECLARE @g geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText('LINESTRING (100 100, 20 180, 180 180)', 0);
SELECT @g.ToString();

STPointFromText: The following example uses STPointFromText() to create a geography instance.

DECLARE @g geography;
SET @g = geography::STPointFromText('POINT(-122.34900 47.65100)', 4326);
SELECT @g.ToString();

STLineFromText: The following example uses STLineFromText() to create a geometry instance.

DECLARE @g geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STLineFromText('LINESTRING (100 100, 200 200)', 0);
SELECT @g.ToString();

STPolyFromText: The following example uses STPolyFromText() to create a geometry instance.

DECLARE @g geometry;
SET @g = geometry::STPolyFromText('POLYGON ((5 5, 10 5, 10 10, 5 5))', 0);
SELECT @g.ToString();

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933876.aspx

jQuery Selectors

2011-12-23T12:45:00Z

jquery selectors are the most important aspects of the jquery Library. On top of standard CSS selectors jquery introduces some custom selectors that makes your code even more simpler and easier to read. Below is a summary table of the jquery selectors

Selector	Example	Selects
*	$("*")	All elements
#id	$("#lastname")	The element with id=lastname
.class	$(".intro")	All elements with class="intro"
element	$("p")	All p elements
.class.class	$(".intro.demo")	All elements with the classes "intro" and "demo"

:first	$("p:first")	The first p element
:last	$("p:last")	The last p element
:even	$("tr:even")	All even tr elements
:odd	$("tr:odd")	All odd tr elements

:eq(index)	$("ul li:eq(3)")	The fourth element in a list (index starts at 0)
:gt(no)	$("ul li:gt(3)")	List elements with an index greater than 3
:lt(no)	$("ul li:lt(3)")	List elements with an index less than 3
:not(selector)	$("input:not(:empty)")	All input elements that are not empty

:header	$(":header")	All header elements h1, h2 ...
:animated	$(":animated")	All animated elements

:contains(text)	$(":contains('W3Schools')")	All elements which contains the text
:empty	$(":empty")	All elements with no child (elements) nodes
:hidden	$("p:hidden")	All hidden p elements
:visible	$("table:visible")	All visible tables

s1,s2,s3	$("th,td,.intro")	All elements with matching selectors

[attribute]	$("[href]")	All elements with a href attribute
[attribute=value]	$("[href='default.htm']")	All elements with a href attribute value equal to "default.htm"
[attribute!=value]	$("[href!='default.htm']")	All elements with a href attribute value not equal to "default.htm"
[attribute$=value]	$("[href$='.jpg']")	All elements with a href attribute value ending with ".jpg"

:input	$(":input")	All input elements
:text	$(":text")	All input elements with type="text"
:password	$(":password")	All input elements with type="password"
:radio	$(":radio")	All input elements with type="radio"
:checkbox	$(":checkbox")	All input elements with type="checkbox"
:submit	$(":submit")	All input elements with type="submit"
:reset	$(":reset")	All input elements with type="reset"
:button	$(":button")	All input elements with type="button"
:image	$(":image")	All input elements with type="image"
:file	$(":file")	All input elements with type="file"

:enabled	$(":enabled")	All enabled input elements
:disabled	$(":disabled")	All disabled input elements
:selected	$(":selected")	All selected input elements
:checked	$(":checked")	All checked input elements

References :

http://codylindley.com/jqueryselectors/

Hide the console window in "C# Console Application"

2011-11-10T11:01:00Z

To hide the console window right click the project -> Properties -> Application in Visual Studio , under Output type select "Windows Application"

jQuery 101 – The Basics

2011-07-16T09:35:00Z

What you should already know

Before you start using jQuery, you should have a basic knowledge of:

HTML
CSS
JavaScript

What is jQuery?

jQuery is a lightweight cross-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML. It was released in January 2006 at BarCamp NYC by John Resig. jQuery simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages.

jQuery usage

This chart represents jQuery web usage queried by BuiltWith

Why using jQuery?

The best added value for jQuery is the effects you can accomplish, with less code than what it would take with JavaScript. jQuery is important because it includes the following features:

HTML element selections
HTML element manipulation
HTML event functions
HTML DOM traversal and modification
Works with AJAX
CSS manipulation
JavaScript effects and animations

The downloadable library

You can download the jQuery file from the jQuery official website : http://www.jquery.com

Getting started with jQuery

The jQuery library is a single js file and it can be included within your web page by adding the following markup:

This markup should be added inside the head tag (<head></head>) of your web page and the src should point to the path of your jQuery file. In case you have added the jQuery reference in your master page/ base page then you do not need to add a reference to the jQuery file in the content page, in other words there should be one <script> tag with jQuery file reference in the HTML source code of your web page.

Note that the jQuery file can be a local copy of the js file or one of the copies that are available on the public servers such as google or Microsoft. So the markup can be one of the following:

NB: make sure you are linking the minified version of jQuery (jquery.min.js) because it is the compressed version of jQuery file which allows you to have a significantly smaller file size, in contradiction with the uncompressed version wich is larger in file size (the uncompressed version is used only for debugging the code)

Facts about public CDN usage

Why loading jQuery file from a public server such as Google or Microsoft?The answer is by doing this you will optimize the load time of the webpage and this will guide to improve the user experience and the performance of your website. I will summarize the benefits of using CDN (Content Delivery Networks) hosted version of jQuery:

The browser will locate the jQuery file from a public server and not the server where you are hosting your website, by fetching the jQuery file from CDN your server is less loaded and will consume less bandwidth
The majority of the browsers have a limit of concurrent HTTP requests to the same server, so loading the jQuery file from CDN will be in parallel with other requests and this will improve the loading time of the webpage (Parallelize downloads across hostnames).
The majority of the page load time is spent in executing different HTTP requests for images, javascript and stylesheets, each time you visit a web page the browser store the related files (such as javascript, images, css files) in the browser history and next time when you visit this webpage again the browser will load the related files from the browser history. Say that you visits site1.com which has the jQuery linked to CDN. If you visits another site site2.com which also has jQuery linked to CDN, the browser will notice that the jQuery file was already downloaded for site1.com and will not download it again.

jQuery plug-ins

jQuery plug-ins are set of components/modules (javascript files) that adds specific abilities/functionalities to your website. There are thousands of jQuery plug-ins available on the web that cover a wide range of functionalities and easily support adding features and reduce the development time of the website. Browse jQuery plug-ins under the following link: http://plugins.jquery.com/

jQuery “Hello World” example

Create a simple HTML page and include the jQuery library

<html>

<head>

<title>jQuery Hello World</title>

$(document).ready(function () {

$("#divID").html("Hello world from jQuery!");

});

</script>

</head>

<body>

</div>

</body>

</html>

Run the page, you should be able to see a message on the page : "Hello world from jQuery!"

References

http://jquery.com/
http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials
http://trends.builtwith.com/javascript/JQuery

The Style of the SP DateTimeControl is Corrupted

2011-07-11T05:34:00Z

I'm using a SharePoint DateTimeControl on a custom SharePoint page, while implementing theomplete behavior of the page I found that the DateTimeControl is not rendered properly on the page, the picker is opening but with no styles. Note that the control is working properly on the default SharePoint pages.

After a time of searching I found a solution by adding the following css (default datepicker stylesheet) reference inside the <head> tag of the iframe.aspx page.

ifarme page location : %programfiles%\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\templates\layouts\iframe.aspx

Large ViewState & ViewState chunking (maxPageStateFieldLength)

2011-07-09T05:14:00Z

The ViewState Chunking mechanism allow you to split the ViewState content into several chunks/hidden fields. The reason behind using this feature is that some proxies and firewalls will deny access to the aspx page that contains a huge ViewState size by enabling the chunking mechanism that will allow you to bypass this policy.

You can enable ViewState chunking by setting the MaxPageStateFieldLength property the web.config of your asp.net application, this property should be added to the "pages" section in the web.config and it will specify the maximum size of the ViewState in bytes.

If the ViewState size is larger than the value of the MaxPageStateFieldLength than it will be splitted automatically into several hidden fields.

Set the property in the web.config as per the following:
<pages maxPageStateFieldLength="5">

ViewState Example:

Note that you should reconsider the way you are using the ViewState (ViewState optimization, maybe disabling it in some cases) when it has large size.

Reference:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178577%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

SharePoint Navigation - Setting the Audience Property of an SPNavigationNode

2011-06-22T07:51:00Z

In this tip/trick i will demonstrate a way of setting by code the target audience of an SP navigation node.
You might say setting this property in SharePoint UI is quite simple, but if you want to set it by code you will not find any straight forward property or method out of the box in SharePoint Object Model that does the job.

The SPNavigationNode class has a property called “Properties”, which allows us to add custom properties to the node. One of the Property is “Audience”, which is used for setting the target audience on the navigation node.

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("URL of your SharePoint Site"))
{
        using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
        {
            SPNavigationNode navNode = web.Navigation.GlobalNodes[0];

            if (navNode.Properties.Contains("Audience"))
            {
                navNode.Properties["Audience"] = "Users or Groups";
            }
            else
            {
                navNode.Properties.Add("Audience", "Users or Groups");
            }
            navNode.Update();
        }
}

Label vs Literal in ASP.NET

2011-03-23T09:40:00Z

Unlike the Label control, the Literal control does not render any additional html tags thats why the best practice says: never use the ASP.NET Label control when a Literal can do the job. In different cases we use the Literal/Label controls to label input controls without knowing the difference between them. The below should help you to decide which control you should use when building asp.net web application.

Label vs Literal:

Label:

The Label web server control is used to label other controls on an aspx web page/UserControl. It is used to display text with the ability to change the style (appearing) of the displayed text.

Inheritance Hierarchy:
System.Object
System.Web.UI.Control
System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Label

<asp:Label ID="lblFirstName" runat="server" CssClass="myCssClass" Text="First Name" />

It will be rendered as:

<span id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_lblFirstName" class="myCssClass">First Name</span>
(NB: the id of the Label is related to the structure of your asp page and if you are using MasterPage or not)

Literal:

Use the System.Web.UI.WebControls.Literal control to reserve a location on the Web page to display text. The Literal control is similar to the Label control, except the Literal control does not allow you to apply a style to the displayed text. You can programmatically control the text displayed in the control by setting the Text property.

Inheritance Hierarchy:
System.Object
System.Web.UI.Control
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Literal

<asp:Literal id="litFirstName" runat="server" Text="First Name" />

It will be rendered as:

First Name

New Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator

2010-10-19T23:19:00Z

If you are looking to work as freelancer and you are not sure how to set your hourly rate please check the below link, remember that your hourly rate should always take into account factors like market demand, industry standards, skill level and experience. I hope you find this calculator useful.

http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/

Escape Single Quotes Within JavaScript

2010-08-24T12:18:00Z

While I was trying to register a JavaScript code into an ASP.NET page I came across the need to ensure that passing a string to the JavaScript method would not cause an error ‘Unterminated string constant error’ upon rendering, this error could be caused if the string contains single quotes.

In this blog I will discuss this issue and I will propose some solutions to avoid this JavaScript error.In the following sample code I’m setting the “onclick” attribute from the code behind of the page, as you can see it will cause an error because of the appearance of the single quote

Html Code :

Code behind:

To solve this issue I propose the following solutions to escape single quotes in c# so that string will not cause any JavaScript issue.

First Solution

A simple solution in such cases is to use HTML codes for apostrophe, which is: '
So the string should be passed to the JavaScript funciton as: string str = "This is an example – Jamil Hallal's blog";

Second Solution

This solution is based on the replacement of the single quote by "\\'" as per the following code:

btnSubmit.Attributes.Add("onclick", string.Format("return ShowText('{0}')", str.Replace("'", \\')));

Third Solution

Use HttpUtility.JavaScriptEncode method if you are using .net framework 4

This way you will not face the 'Unterminated String constant' error anymore.