Access an IIS Express site from a remote computer

1 – FOR VISUAL STUDIO 2015: As was pointed out to me in a comment by Søren Nielsen, in Visual Studio 2015 the IIS Express configuration files have moved. They are now separate per project, and stored in /{project folder}/.vs/config/applicationhost.config. Which is much better, in my opinion, just don’t forget to add .vs/ to your .gitignore/.hgignore files!

You will find something like this:

<site name="Alpha.Web" id="2">
    <application path="/">
        <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Users\Johan\HgReps\Alpha\Alpha.Web" />
    </application>
    <bindings>
        <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:58938:localhost" />
    </bindings>
</site>

In , add another row:

<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:58938:192.168.1.42" />

(But with your IP, and port number, of course)

2 – Allow incoming connections
If you’re running Windows 7, pretty much all incoming connections are locked down, so you need to specifically allow incoming connections to your application. First, start an administrative command prompt. Second, run these commands, replacing 192.168.1.42:58938 with whatever IP and port you are using:

netsh http add urlacl url=http://192.168.1.42:58938/ user=everyone

This just tells http.sys that it’s ok to talk to this url.

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="IISExpressWeb" dir=in protocol=tcp localport=58938 profile=private remoteip=localsubnet action=allow

This adds a rule in the Windows Firewall, allowing incoming connections to port 58938 for computers on your local subnet.

To delete the rules you can do this:

netsh http show urlacl
netsh http delete urlacl url=http://192.168.1.42:58938/

References
http://johan.driessen.se/posts/Accessing-an-IIS-Express-site-from-a-remote-computer

How to install Gradle on Windows

  1. Unzip the Gradle download to the folder to which you would like to install Gradle, eg. “C:\Program Files”. The subdirectory gradle-x.x will be created from the archive, where x.x is the version.
  2. Add location of your Gradle “bin” folder to your path. Open the system properties (WinKey + Pause), select the “Advanced” tab, and the “Environment Variables” button, then add “C:\Program Files\gradle-x.x\bin” (or wherever you unzipped Gradle) to the end of your “Path” variable under System Properties. Be sure to omit any quotation marks around the path even if it contains spaces. Also make sure you separated from previous PATH entries with a semicolon “;”.
  3. In the same dialog, make sure that JAVA_HOME exists in your user variables or in the system variables and it is set to the location of your JDK, e.g. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_06 and that %JAVA_HOME%\bin is in your Path environment variable.
  4. Open a new command prompt (type cmd in Start menu) and run gradle –version to verify that it is correctly installed.

References
http://bryanlor.com/blog/gradle-tutorial-how-install-gradle-windows
https://www.javacodegeeks.com/2013/04/how-to-install-gradle-2.html

Handlebarsjs JavaScript template engine

<script id="entry-template" type="text/x-handlebars-template">
  <div class="entry">
    <h1>{{title}}</h1>
    <div class="body">
      {{body}}
    </div>
  </div>
</script>
var source   = $("#entry-template").html();
var template = Handlebars.compile(source);

var context = {title: "My New Post", body: "This is my first post!"};
var html    = template(context);

Result

<div class="entry">
  <h1>My New Post</h1>
  <div class="body">
    This is my first post!
  </div>
</div>

References
http://handlebarsjs.com/
https://www.sitepoint.com/overview-javascript-templating-engines/

Post data using HTTP in C#

Currently the preferred approach. Asynchronous. Ships with .NET 4.5; portable version for other platforms available via NuGet.

using System.Net.Http;

POST

using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
    var values = new Dictionary<string, string>
    {
       { "thing1", "hello" },
       { "thing2", "world" }
    };

    var content = new FormUrlEncodedContent(values);

    var response = await client.PostAsync("http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx", content);

    var responseString = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
}

GET

using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
    var responseString = client.GetStringAsync("http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx");
}

References
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4015324/http-request-with-post

Keywords
http , method , get , C# , .NET

ASP.NET MVC exception : Multiple types were found that match the controller named ‘Home’

This error message often happens when you use areas and you have the same controller name inside the area and the root. For example you have the two:

~/Controllers/HomeController.cs
~/Areas/Admin/Controllers/HomeController.cs

In order to resolve this issue (as the error message suggests you), you could use namespaces when declaring your routes. So in the main route definition in Global.asax:

routes.MapRoute(
    "Default",
    "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new[] { "AppName.Controllers" }
);

and in your ~/Areas/Admin/AdminAreaRegistration.cs:

context.MapRoute(
    "Admin_default",
    "Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new[] { "AppName.Areas.Admin.Controllers" }
);

If you are not using areas it seems that your both applications are hosted inside the same ASP.NET application and conflicts occur because you have the same controllers defined in different namespaces. You will have to configure IIS to host those two as separate ASP.NET applications if you want to avoid such kind of conflicts. Ask your hosting provider for this if you don’t have access to the server.

References :
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7842293/multiple-types-were-found-that-match-the-controller-named-home

Sample layout for a website

layout

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title></title>
    <meta charset="utf-8"/>
    <style type="text/css">
        body {
            margin-left: 0px;
            margin-top: 0px;
            margin-right: 0px;
            margin-bottom: 0px;
        }

        #Container {
            width: 800px;
            height: auto;
            margin-left: auto;
            margin-right: auto;
            margin-top: 11px;
            margin-bottom: 21px;
        }

        #Header {
            height: 150px;
            background-color: blue;

        }

        #Menu {
            height: 60px;
            background-color: darkcyan;
        }

        #Sidebar {
            width: 150px;
            height: 400px;
            background-color: chartreuse;
            float: left;
        }

        #MainBody {
            width: 650px;
            height: 400px;
            background-color: coral;
            float: right;
        }

        #Footer {
            height: 100px;
            clear: both;
            background-color: cornflowerblue;
        }

    </style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="Container">
    <div id="Header"></div>
    <div id="Menu"></div>
    <div id="Sidebar"></div>
    <div id="MainBody"></div>
    <div id="Footer"></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>