C# – Inheriting a web server control in a simple fashion

asp.netccustom-server-controls

I'm having a Repeater used as a sort of Paging TagCloud. To do so, I've added simple properties to the Page's ViewState such as a Page, RowCount, etc…

I feel like it doesn't belong there but I had bad experiences with server controls, debugging, dll and deployment.

Could I just inherit the Repeater class, add a few ControlState/ViewState properties and be able to use it exactly as a Repeater dragged straight from the ToolBox?

Here, having the following simple class:

    public class TagCloud : Repeater
{
    public int selectedIndex;

    public TagCloud()
    {
        selectedIndex = -1;
        //
        // TODO: Add constructor logic here
        //
    }

    public int SelectedIndex
    {
        get { return selectedIndex; }
        set { selectedIndex = value; }
    }
}

Without creating a new WebControlLibrary project, could this cs file stands in the App_Code folder and work like expected?

Thanks.

Best Answer

Yes, there is no problem doing this. As long as you use the control's property syntax:

public int RowCount
{

  get { return (int) (ViewState["RowCount"] ?? 0); }
  set { ViewState["RowCount"] = value; }

}

Also, to make your properties look the same as the default ones you can add Description or DefaultValue attributes.

Related Solutions

C# – Simple insecure two-way data “obfuscation”

Other answers here work fine, but AES is a more secure and up-to-date encryption algorithm. This is a class that I obtained a few years ago to perform AES encryption that I have modified over time to be more friendly for web applications (e,g. I've built Encrypt/Decrypt methods that work with URL-friendly string). It also has the methods that work with byte arrays.

NOTE: you should use different values in the Key (32 bytes) and Vector (16 bytes) arrays! You wouldn't want someone to figure out your keys by just assuming that you used this code as-is! All you have to do is change some of the numbers (must be <= 255) in the Key and Vector arrays (I left one invalid value in the Vector array to make sure you do this...). You can use https://www.random.org/bytes/ to generate a new set easily:

Using it is easy: just instantiate the class and then call (usually) EncryptToString(string StringToEncrypt) and DecryptString(string StringToDecrypt) as methods. It couldn't be any easier (or more secure) once you have this class in place.

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.IO;


public class SimpleAES
{
    // Change these keys
    private byte[] Key = __Replace_Me__({ 123, 217, 19, 11, 24, 26, 85, 45, 114, 184, 27, 162, 37, 112, 222, 209, 241, 24, 175, 144, 173, 53, 196, 29, 24, 26, 17, 218, 131, 236, 53, 209 });

    // a hardcoded IV should not be used for production AES-CBC code
    // IVs should be unpredictable per ciphertext
    private byte[] Vector = __Replace_Me__({ 146, 64, 191, 111, 23, 3, 113, 119, 231, 121, 2521, 112, 79, 32, 114, 156 });


    private ICryptoTransform EncryptorTransform, DecryptorTransform;
    private System.Text.UTF8Encoding UTFEncoder;

    public SimpleAES()
    {
        //This is our encryption method
        RijndaelManaged rm = new RijndaelManaged();

        //Create an encryptor and a decryptor using our encryption method, key, and vector.
        EncryptorTransform = rm.CreateEncryptor(this.Key, this.Vector);
        DecryptorTransform = rm.CreateDecryptor(this.Key, this.Vector);

        //Used to translate bytes to text and vice versa
        UTFEncoder = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding();
    }

    /// -------------- Two Utility Methods (not used but may be useful) -----------
    /// Generates an encryption key.
    static public byte[] GenerateEncryptionKey()
    {
        //Generate a Key.
        RijndaelManaged rm = new RijndaelManaged();
        rm.GenerateKey();
        return rm.Key;
    }

    /// Generates a unique encryption vector
    static public byte[] GenerateEncryptionVector()
    {
        //Generate a Vector
        RijndaelManaged rm = new RijndaelManaged();
        rm.GenerateIV();
        return rm.IV;
    }


    /// ----------- The commonly used methods ------------------------------    
    /// Encrypt some text and return a string suitable for passing in a URL.
    public string EncryptToString(string TextValue)
    {
        return ByteArrToString(Encrypt(TextValue));
    }

    /// Encrypt some text and return an encrypted byte array.
    public byte[] Encrypt(string TextValue)
    {
        //Translates our text value into a byte array.
        Byte[] bytes = UTFEncoder.GetBytes(TextValue);

        //Used to stream the data in and out of the CryptoStream.
        MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream();

        /*
         * We will have to write the unencrypted bytes to the stream,
         * then read the encrypted result back from the stream.
         */
        #region Write the decrypted value to the encryption stream
        CryptoStream cs = new CryptoStream(memoryStream, EncryptorTransform, CryptoStreamMode.Write);
        cs.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
        cs.FlushFinalBlock();
        #endregion

        #region Read encrypted value back out of the stream
        memoryStream.Position = 0;
        byte[] encrypted = new byte[memoryStream.Length];
        memoryStream.Read(encrypted, 0, encrypted.Length);
        #endregion

        //Clean up.
        cs.Close();
        memoryStream.Close();

        return encrypted;
    }

    /// The other side: Decryption methods
    public string DecryptString(string EncryptedString)
    {
        return Decrypt(StrToByteArray(EncryptedString));
    }

    /// Decryption when working with byte arrays.    
    public string Decrypt(byte[] EncryptedValue)
    {
        #region Write the encrypted value to the decryption stream
        MemoryStream encryptedStream = new MemoryStream();
        CryptoStream decryptStream = new CryptoStream(encryptedStream, DecryptorTransform, CryptoStreamMode.Write);
        decryptStream.Write(EncryptedValue, 0, EncryptedValue.Length);
        decryptStream.FlushFinalBlock();
        #endregion

        #region Read the decrypted value from the stream.
        encryptedStream.Position = 0;
        Byte[] decryptedBytes = new Byte[encryptedStream.Length];
        encryptedStream.Read(decryptedBytes, 0, decryptedBytes.Length);
        encryptedStream.Close();
        #endregion
        return UTFEncoder.GetString(decryptedBytes);
    }

    /// Convert a string to a byte array.  NOTE: Normally we'd create a Byte Array from a string using an ASCII encoding (like so).
    //      System.Text.ASCIIEncoding encoding = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding();
    //      return encoding.GetBytes(str);
    // However, this results in character values that cannot be passed in a URL.  So, instead, I just
    // lay out all of the byte values in a long string of numbers (three per - must pad numbers less than 100).
    public byte[] StrToByteArray(string str)
    {
        if (str.Length == 0)
            throw new Exception("Invalid string value in StrToByteArray");

        byte val;
        byte[] byteArr = new byte[str.Length / 3];
        int i = 0;
        int j = 0;
        do
        {
            val = byte.Parse(str.Substring(i, 3));
            byteArr[j++] = val;
            i += 3;
        }
        while (i < str.Length);
        return byteArr;
    }

    // Same comment as above.  Normally the conversion would use an ASCII encoding in the other direction:
    //      System.Text.ASCIIEncoding enc = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding();
    //      return enc.GetString(byteArr);    
    public string ByteArrToString(byte[] byteArr)
    {
        byte val;
        string tempStr = "";
        for (int i = 0; i <= byteArr.GetUpperBound(0); i++)
        {
            val = byteArr[i];
            if (val < (byte)10)
                tempStr += "00" + val.ToString();
            else if (val < (byte)100)
                tempStr += "0" + val.ToString();
            else
                tempStr += val.ToString();
        }
        return tempStr;
    }
}

.net – ASP.NET Web Site or ASP.NET Web Application

Website:

The Web Site project is compiled on the fly. You end up with a lot more DLL files, which can be a pain. It also gives problems when you have pages or controls in one directory that need to reference pages and controls in another directory since the other directory may not be compiled into the code yet. Another problem can be in publishing.

If Visual Studio isn't told to re-use the same names constantly, it will come up with new names for the DLL files generated by pages all the time. That can lead to having several close copies of DLL files containing the same class name, which will generate plenty of errors. The Web Site project was introduced with Visual Studio 2005, but it has turned out not to be popular.

Web Application:

The Web Application Project was created as an add-in and now exists as part of SP 1 for Visual Studio 2005. The main differences are the Web Application Project was designed to work similarly to the Web projects that shipped with Visual Studio 2003. It will compile the application into a single DLL file at build time. To update the project, it must be recompiled and the DLL file published for changes to occur.

Another nice feature of the Web Application project is it's much easier to exclude files from the project view. In the Web Site project, each file that you exclude is renamed with an excluded keyword in the filename. In the Web Application Project, the project just keeps track of which files to include/exclude from the project view without renaming them, making things much tidier.

Reference

The article ASP.NET 2.0 - Web Site vs Web Application project also gives reasons on why to use one and not the other. Here is an excerpt of it:

You need to migrate large Visual Studio .NET 2003 applications to VS 2005? use the Web Application project.

You want to open and edit any directory as a Web project without creating a project file? use Web Site project.

You need to add pre-build and post-build steps during compilation? use Web Application project.

You need to build a Web application using multiple Web projects? use the Web Application project.

You want to generate one assembly for each page? use the Web Site project.

You prefer dynamic compilation and working on pages without building entire site on each page view? use Web Site project.

You prefer single-page code model to code-behind model? use Web Site project.

Web Application Projects versus Web Site Projects (MSDN) explains the differences between the web site and web application projects. Also, it discusses the configuration to be made in Visual Studio.