Release Notes

The latest release of Code OnTime Generator, Web Site Builder,  and Web Site Factory features several enhancements.

Multi-Select Everywhere

You can now enable globally the multi-select feature in your ASP.NET web applications. The code generation control option is available on the Features page of the project wizard under Grid Layout section.

The next screen shot shows a page with multi-select enabled.

A row selection check box becomes visible if you hover over a row. A check box becomes permanently visible  when checked to make the page look less busy. The number of selected records is displayed in the pager area.

The feature allows multiple row selection on multiple pages. Only Delete operation is supported with multiple selected rows out-of-the-box.

Batch Editing Everywhere

Batch Edit is another command that works with multiple row selection. You can enable batch editing in all data controllers by selecting the “Enable batch editing…” feature in Grid Layout section of the application Features page in the project wizard.

Batch editing is activated by selecting Batch Edit or Batch Edit (Form) popup menu option from the row context menu when you hover over a link in the first column of any grid view. You can edit multiple records inline and in a form view. Each field is automatically displaying update check box that must be checked to indicate the fields that must be updated in the selected rows.

Here is the screen shot of the feature in action when activated inline in a grid view.

Globalization and Localization

Now you can explicitly define the globalization options in the code generator project wizard and create your own localized resources.

Read about it at /blog/2010/05/globalization-and-localization.html.

The latest release of Web Site Factory and Data Aquarium Framework support additional ASP.NET Membership configuration options. The menu of the available options is displayed in the screenshot below.

Here is a brief description of the available options.

Dedicated Login Page

The standard generated application features a fly-over login dialog that helps users to sign in. Users can also recover their password and sign up for new accounts as well. Sometimes you may want to have a dedicated login page with similar capabilities. If you enable a dedicated login page and generate your project then you will be greeted with the following login page when the application starts.

All application pages are automatically protected and any attempt to access a page will require a user to sign in. A dedicated user control ~/Controls/Login.ascx is automatically generated. You can freely change the control in Visual Studio according to your needs. The generator will not be trying to overwrite this control in the future. The default markup of the control is shown below:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" 
    CodeFile="Login.ascx.cs" Inherits="Controls_Login" %>
<%@ Register Src="Welcome.ascx" TagName="Welcome" TagPrefix="uc1" %>
<div class="SettingsPanel">
    <asp:Login ID="Login1" runat="server" TitleText="" Style="border-collapse: separate;"
        CreateUserText="Sign Up Now" 
        CreateUserUrl="javascript:Web.Membership._instance.signUp();"
        PasswordRecoveryText="Forgot Your Password?" 
        PasswordRecoveryUrl="javascript:Web.Membership._instance.passwordRecovery();">
    </asp:Login>
    <div style="width: 300px; margin: 20px -8px;">
        <uc1:Welcome ID="Welcome1" runat="server" />
    </div>
</div>

If you don’t want to allow password recovery or self-sign up then simply remove the corresponding properties from the control’s markup.

If a dedicated login page is enabled then the fly-over login dialog on the membership bar at the top of the pages will not be displayed anymore.

“Remember Me” Options

Two more new options control if the fly-over dialog will display “Remember me next time” check box in the fly-over login dialog. The “Remember Me” check box is unchecked by default.  Now you can change that by requesting “Remember Me” option to be “checked”.

Password Recovery and Sign Up

Standard features of ASP.NET Membership are password recovery and self sign-up. You can now control if this options are available in your application. The following screenshot shows the fly-over dialog with “remember me”, “password recovery, and “sign up” features disabled. You can see the standard fly-over dialog in action with all features enabled at http://dev.codeontime.com/demo/WebSiteFactory3.

“My Account” and “Help”

Two more additional options allow to control if users can access and change their account and invoke the page-level help system. Here is the screen shot with both features enabled. You can see “My Account” and “Help” links on the membership bar.

Here the screen shot of the same page with both options disabled in the code generator project wizard.

Standalone Membership Database

You can also elect to create a standalone membership database. Read more about it at /blog/2010/03/standalone-aspnet-membership-database.html.

Future Enhancements

The upcoming updates to the premium projects will introduce support for Windows Authentication and also allow to create a custom authentication without dependencies on ASP.NET Membership while retaining all security features described in the tutorials at /blog/2009/12/security-pages-fields-actions.html. We will post a tutorial that will show how to use a database table to authenticate users on the dedicated login page.

The membership bar will also allow activating most recent used objects to allow quick navigation to the application objects that were recently accessed by users.