Just created a new MVC4 Web API project - however I don't want any client-side for this, just the back-end to be referenced from other clients.
Is there any, sensible, reason that the default project template includes all of the javascript, views, etc?
Can they be removed without issue?
Default the web api project also contains the regular mvc stuff. If you do not intent to use the web api help pages (https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.HelpPage) or intend to develop a website part next to your api you can easily remove all views, scripts & statics.
Related
I basically have the same question as what is detailed here: Login redirect with asp.Core 2.0 and React. But that post never got an answer.
I've searched quite a bit and pretty much my problem is also touched on here here: https://github.com/aspnet/JavaScriptServices/issues/1440
I want to create a react front end application, but use .net core for the backend. I've used the .net core template with react redux as my boilerplate. I've also configured the .net identity on my backend. So I can actually use [Authorize] on my api calls and it works. By this I mean that if someone is authenticated the api returns data and if no one is authenticated it returns whatever the default redirect page is. I can confirm this by looking at the response on my chrome debugger and I see that it is showing the html for the register page which I've defaulted my login path to in configureapplicationcookie options.
The boiler plate is setup to serve up pages from the react client folder and uses react router. Therefore, I cannot set up any links to pages on my server. However, I'm able to manually navigate to my server pages for example /Account/Login and successfully login. My api calls through the links on the react front end then seem to work just as I would like.
What I would like to do is:
make calls from my react application to my server api
upon unsuccessful access to any api endpoint, redirect the user/request to my register page on the .net core server
have the user register and/or login and then redirect them to the route they came from through the react application.
Is this possible? Is it advisable?
I understand that you can manage all this on the front end using IdentityServer as detailed here: http://docs.identityserver.io/en/release/quickstarts/7_javascript_client.html. However, if all the infrastructure can be quickly spun up in .net and I can leverage the authentication templates, then I want to experiment with that setup and save time. Plus if this is feasible, why bother doing the setup on the front end using a 3rd party login provider? What am I missing?
I currently have an ASP.NET Core MVC application with multiple pages with one particular page having a lot of hand-made javascript code and ajax requests. It's becoming quite hard to manage and I would like to move to a framework like Angular, React etc for this particular page only. It is feasible to convert a single MVC view to a SPA app and still keep the other pages? Does anyone have any references on this? Google is not being too helpful...
The simplest way I have found to do this is to use one of the SPA templates and then add the static pages around that.
Here's an an example project I have made that demonstrates the concept by adding a new Razor Page to the angular SPA template.
To do this for an already existing MVC/Razor Pages app I would suggest copying the following from an SPA template project to the MVC/Razor Pages app:
ClientApp
Controllers (SampleDataController.cs)
Views (Home, Shared)
npm_shrinkwrap.json
package.json
tsconfig.json
webpack.config.json
webpack.config.vendor.json
Startup.cs (copy the SPA things)
This is not an exhaustive list but should get someone most of the way.
I'm currently reviewing ASP.NET Web API and wondered if anybody has managed to 'streamline' the VS2010/12 project template that you get when you create a new ASP.NET Web API project.
Call me skeptical, but I'm wondering if Microsoft have thrown a few things in the project template that might not be needed, whereby its removal will make the things go faster.
For example, in web forms, you get most of the http modules included by default, and in most cases you won't need all modules.
Basically, I'm looking for the best performance possible for my shiny new Web API webservice, and if I can throw out the spare tyre and the ashtray, I will.
Thanks.
There was a lot of feedback about getting a cleaner starting point for the purist developers. Release notes here:
"Empty Project Template
The MVC Empty project template is now truly empty so that you can
start from a completely clean slate. The earlier version of the Empty
project template has been renamed to Basic."
You will find that the "Empty" project template will be the minimum you can get away with on a new WebApi project.
File -> Templates -> Web - Asp.Net MVC 4 Web Application
Select Template "Empty".
I really like the new feature, Web API that's released with MVC4.
I'm currently working on a web application, that I will want to extend it to a mobile application.
What would be the best way of utilizing this feature?
Program it like there's no Web API, and when i'm ready to develop for a mobile application, then use this feature (Copy and paste controller functions then edit the return and error handling value ?
Or should I use Web API from the beginning of the web development. Using javascript to call functions and to handle errros? The problem with this apporach is I'm not too familiar with JS, and the code would not look very clean (the Views)
Any opinion?
Thanks
IMHO the Web API shouldn't be seen as a feature specific to mobile application development. It's a tool allowing you to easily expose RESTful APIs over HTTP. Those APIs could be consumed from desktop applications, web applications, mobile applications, etc ... The interface for each type of application will of course be developed using the specific frameworks and tools for this task (WPF, ASP.NET/MVC, WP7/iOS/Android, ...).
The Web API just allows you to expose your business data and services in an interoperable way so that different clients could consume them.
I would prefer using the second approach.
In the beginning, I also thought the .ajax calls might mess up the Views. (No one likes to add a long <script> section in a View.) But after asking my questions on Stackoverflow, I am glad to find some experts here using some "code-behind" for those javascript.
The practice is:
Create a separate JS folder to store all the "code-behind" js files. (The default Scripts folder only contains the third-party packages like knockout.js, jquery.js and etc)
For each view, generate a .js file, like home.index.js, form.add.js, etc. Just follow a consistent rule. There will be a lot of js files created. The great thing is in MVC4, we can combine all .js files under this folder and generate a minified, combined, single file, and load it only once in the _Layout view.
The way to do it is:
In _Layout view, <head> section:
<script src="#System.Web.Optimization.BundleTable.Bundles.ResolveBundleUrl("~/JavaScripts/js")" type="text/javascript"></script>
In Global.asax, Application_Start, register the bundle:
var bundle = new Bundle("~/JavaScripts/js", new JsMinify());
bundle.AddDirectory("~/JavaScripts", "*.js", true);
BundleTable.Bundles.Add(bundle);
BundleTable.Bundles.EnableDefaultBundles();
//BundleTable.Bundles.RegisterTemplateBundles();
Then you are good to go. The Views are still clean. All the .js files are organized. And no need to import different .js file on each individual view.
Leaning JS is not a problem. As it is probably the only client-side programming language, it is now becoming necessary for us to learn new things. And I feel it is easier since we have jQuery now. It is time to upgrade our knowledge. I am happy and excited about what we can accomplish with these new tools.
I am using MVC4's WEB API to expose a controller.
Initially I created created a MVC4 WEBAPI project, set the project not to open any web page, wait for an external app to call the URL (WEB API). The project in VS2010 is set to run from IIS7 Express, not VS2010's Dev Server. This works OK, the browser prompts me to down load a file. Which is OK for me, as the browser does not know what to do with the returned data (RAW TEXT).
Next, I created an AREA in the MVC4 project area, then added a controller (WEB API type).
Then I once again ran the project and in a browser entered the the URL (WEB API). And it fails.
Ed.
The DefaultHttpControllerFactory doesn't work with Areas by default. To get this functionality you have to write your custom HttpControllerFactory.
You can find how to do this at the post How to create HttpControllerFactory to support Areas
While it is possible to place WebApi Controllers in different Areas, ASP.NET MVC 4 RC will still treat these ApiControllers as if they all reside in the same namespace. This is a limitation of the DefaultHttpControllerSelector, which is responsible for selecting the appropriate ApiController.
Fortunately, you can inject your own implementation of this class. In fact, I've already encountered this very issue and written an "area aware" HttpControllerSelector. You can find a blog post of mine about this issue and its solution here:
http://blogs.infosupport.com/asp-net-mvc-4-rc-getting-webapi-and-areas-to-play-nicely/