I have a question to creator of WinRT XAML Toolkit that had helped me a lot.
What is the best mechanism for working with rich pages in WinRT?
These are the conditions:
There are about 2 pages that have a lot of elements and some high resolution images in the background. Obviously they consume time to load their content. That's why I use AlternativeFrame.Preload() method from the Toolkit.
Also these pages are the most frequently used.
That's why I stand before choosing to either constantly preload these pages (create, draw, fill) but when it is needed or creating my own page cache that would store them (maybe I am blind and the Toolkit already has this functionality?).
Can you advise what's the best practice in this problem and whether maybe there's a third way?
To add some more background - the WinRT XAML Toolkit library has two controls: AlternativeFrame and AlternativePage that are alternate implementations of the base Frame and Page classes that come out of the box in Windows 8 SDK for dealing with UI navigation - similar to how you navigate pages in a web browser. The API of these alternative controls is almost the same as in the base ones, but it adds some more support for asynchronous development model, page transition animations and preloading pages before they are requested.
Currently the Preload() method preloads a page of a given type in the background and puts it in a cache and when a Navigate() method is invoked to navigate to the page of that type - instead of instantiating a new page - the one in the cache is used, so it can immediately be shown, but also - the cache gets emptied and the next time you want to navigate to that same page - you need to preload it again. This works well if you don't return to the preloaded page often and the page uses a lot of memory, but if you want to keep that page in cache - there is not built-in support for that. The original Page class has a NavigationCacheMode property that allows to configure a page to be kept in cache once it is loaded the first time and it would be a good option for you, but AlternativePage doesn't have that support yet. I am thinking about adding it there today since I have some free time, so you might decide to wait for me to do it. Other options include
displaying your page on top of the navigation frame instead of navigating to it in the frame - then you could simply show/hide it when needed
or you can switch back to the standard Frame/Page controls and set NavigationCacheMode="Required" on your Page so it stays in memory forever, though you do lose the Preload() feature then.
or you can modify the Toolkit yourself
or you can cache the content of your page yourself - simply save the Content of your page in some sort of cache (e.g. a Dictionary<Type,UIElement> that maps page type to content) and remove it from the page (set Content to null) when you navigate away from the page and then add it back to the page when you navigate to it and the content is found in the cache. In that case you would probably want to make the Content be a separate UserControl and skip calling InitializeComponent() in the constructor if you retrieve the content from the cache since you can only have one Content and having it defined in a separate UserControl will allow you to get auto-generated code that gets executed in InitializeComponent() that grants you easy access to named elements, registers event handlers etc.
Related
Let me further explain.
You have a page where an application lives. However, upon first login, the user is prompted with a welcome screen that loads in the center of the browser. Like a pop-up from the application. This welcome screen is to help the user get familiar with the app. You can move on through the screens by reading the information and clicking the Continue button. After several of these pop-ups, the application will now be available for testing.
So how would I handle this in the Page Object Pattern using Selenium. Should I have a main page that just has functionality to navigate through these modals? Or should the main page return objects that represent each of the individual modals? Or should each modal be a separate page that I interact with?
Basically, I can think of several options:
ApplicationPage.Modal1.Continue();
or
Modal1.Continue();
Modal2.Continue();
or
ApplicationPage.ContinueThroughModal1();
or
ModalPage.Continue1();
ModalPage.Continue2();
I prefer to look at pages as collection of services. So
should the main page return objects that represent each of the individual modals?
PageObject helps you to improve the maintenance and reduces code duplication. So you can use it as an interface to a page of your AUT.
should each modal be a separate page that I interact with?
I would say - yes. If some future change occurs (in any modal), your PageObj will handle it without changing the test itself. Why not introduce a IModalPopup with Continue() method which will handle the skipping that your tests need. Further more in your MainPage class you can keep a ICollection<IModalPopup> welcomeScreens and iterate those.
Aiming at a full answer here - there is no need to actually go through this
welcome screen that loads in the center of the browser.
Once is enough. Every other test can utilize URL navigation over crawling each middle page. Single test that covers your end-user journey (by clicking required buttons/links) should be sufficient.
I recently uploaded custom html and css for one page on my big commerce store.The page is responsive, and mobile optimized. It works on desktops, but is over ridden by the generic mobile theme that is installed when I view it on my phone. How can I stop this page from being over ridden by the mobile version, without disabling the mobile theme completely?
Thanks,
There are 2 methods off the top of my head.
First method
Any HTML file on BigCommerce, with a mobile/responsive theme, has 2 copies of some part of the HTML page. The mobile HTML/CSS is simply triggered by an HTML class mobile on the HTML copy that is there to be only seen on mobile, which contains one copy of relevant HTML (ie, menus, logo, shopping cart icon and link, etc).
Another HTML block has class desktop and is only triggered for certain screen sizes (similar to mobile), and only shows it's desktop version of the HTMl when the screen size conditions are met.
So if screen is small, in your responsive.css file, .mobile is display:none;, while desktop class has all the proper visible CSS.
On the reverse, on desktop-sized screens, the desktop HTML is properly styled, while the mobile class HTML block is display:none.
So, in this first solution, you would simply place a copy of your custom HTMl and style it properly for display on mobile screens. This way, the mobile-styled version will only show up on mobile devices, while the desktop properly-styled version will only show up on dektop size screens. As far as BC goes, I think this is the optimal method.
Second method
You can make a custom template for the page in question. So if it's product.html and you want it custom for some specific product(s), you would create a product-custom.html and place it in your WebDav "/template/Panels" folder.
Now, on your product(s) which must use the new custom HTML, go to their page and scroll to the bottom and you will see a template file selection box, which should say product.html. Change that to your new product-custom.html.
Now, as for the custom file, simply edit the HTML/CSS rules revolving around .desktop and .mobile class (possibly just removing them all together) so that when a page is loaded on a small screen, the CSS rule to hide the desktop version won't apply. At the same time, you should delete the duplicate .mobile class HTML as it will no longer be needed.
This second method is much more flexible but also takes more work and is generally much more messy and requires much more maintenance.
I strongly recommend method #1.
Let me know if this helps and if you have nay other questions.
Is there a way by which I can duplicate or clone dijit widgets?
Basically, idea is to improve page rendering performance by minimizing widget creation time.
We have a single page web application and we do not reload the entire page whenever the user performs any action.
The flow of events is as follows,
The main page is loaded by the browser. It contains a dijit ContentPane which acts as a master container and displays the entire page using various other dijit widgets like textboxes, tabs, datefield, Enhanced grid etc.
The user performs an action (e.g. click on a dijit button)
The application sends an ajax call to server which processes the button click event and generates UI of the next page.
Browser receives successful response from ajax call and calls refresh method of dijit ContentPane. Which triggers destruction of existing widgets and new set of widgets are created and placed at appropriate position. (instead of refreshing the entire page)
The user again performs some action and again the refresh method is called which triggers destruction of existing widgets and new set of widgets are created and placed at appropriate position.
Because of such architecture the browser has to destroy existing widgets and recreate them again and again. Which results in slow performance.
The idea is to have a set of widgets always readily available on the browser clone them and place at appropriate position and update them instead of recreating each time.
Yes this is possible with something called _AttachMixin.
Basically there is no getting around the fact that your widgets would need to attach event listeners to the HTML Document. What can be cut out though is the time in the Dijit Widget's lifecycle to generate the DOM. As we well know, simple Dijit widgets like a dijit/form/Button has a div inside a div inside a div etc.
This is explained in detail here http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.9/dijit/_AttachMixin.html
Here is an example using Node.JS as a backend. http://jamesthom.as/blog/2013/01/15/server-side-dijit
This is a tough problem and this concept isn't explained very thoroughly. If you have a backend that is not Node.JS you have to manually make the widget string and pass it as a response to your AJAX and an follow the example from the 1st link (Ref Doc)
We have had lots of widgets of our app render nicely within the client side. A far less complicated approach would be to simply show / hide (instead of render and destroy) widgets as and when they are needed. I assume that you app's access policy would focus on data and not which person has access to which widget.
I want to enable caching for a page that loads when an ListView item is clicked. So when the user clicks a second time on the same item, the app will navigate to the previous cached page.
(I'm using LayoutAwarePages and I suspect that this should be possible if in the OnNavigatedTo method the NavigationMode parameter is different from NavigationMode.New)
Any ideas?
You affect the page caching by setting the NavigationCacheMode property of the page in its constructor. By default it is disabled, but if you enable it, you'll get the existing page instance every time you navigate to it. This means that even if the user navigates to a different item in your ListView, the same instance of the page will be reused.
I've found a library reimplementing the navigation framework to make it more like the one in Windows Phone, i.e.:
When navigating back the cached page is used.
When navigating forward a new instance of the page is created.
If I understand your question correctly, you require a different caching behavior from both of the above. To achieve that you could either base your alternative navigation framework on the one in the library I linked to or simulate the behavior by persisting just the page state for each item instead of actually caching the pages.
I have a huge website (containing around 5000+) pages. There is a theme functionality in the website where user can choose different colors for their profile. Now i want to use the ASP.net theme feature and put different CSS (for different colors) in the theme folder and in Global.asax i want check the user theme and render appropriate link element with the css. But my problem is, i am not able to access the Page element for adding the link in the page.
Here is my code
Dim page As System.Web.UI.Page = TryCast(System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Handler,System.Web.UI.Page)
page.StyleSheetTheme = "Black"
But when i run this code I get a Null reference error.
P.s : My application is very huge so its not possible to have a master page or a base class and inherit it in every page.
Please suggest.
The page is not available in PreRequestExecute. This function is called before asp.net steps in to handle things, and asp.net is responsible for the page. Think of PreRequestExecute as being earlier in the scheme of things, like when IIS is first trying to figure out what to do with this thing it has, the thing is not even a page yet.
You might want to look into some of the other events that you can hook, there are events that would take place after the page has loaded that may allow you to do what you are suggesting.
Rather than going into global.asax for this, consider using master pages. One possibility is to have nested master pages, where the first master page sets up overall layout, and the nested master handles the theme. (Or one of several nested master pages, all referencing the same top-level master page). If necessary, you can use the PreInit event in the page to change master pages, and select the master that matches your theme selection.
You can centralize this function by having your own class that inherits System.Web.UI.Page, and have all your own pages inherit this new class. Handle the PreInit event there. (As well as other useful functions, like page-level handling of unhandled exceptions, general security issues, etc.
EDITED TO ADD: As #aepheus correctly notes, the page hasn't been instantiated at the PreRequestHandlerExecute event. So there's no page class you can access.