Some notes from MonoRail/AspView talk

Regarding my MonoRail/AspView talk from last week, Oren Ellenbogen has compiled a list of “things to remember”.

His list (with my notes):

These are my notes about the lecture (as someone who wants to use it in our project at Semingo):

1. DataBind of fields - nice migration from string into classes and vice versa.

2. Need vcompile.exe in order to compile views.

3. Cannot use asp.netcontrols. Actually we don’t need it in our project. (Actually you can use ‘em in MonoRail, if you are using the WebFormsViewEngine, but it hurts the simplicity of MonoRail too much)

4. Routing is a must (think about url structure in our project). (RoutingHttpModule will do the job)

5. Learn about the mapping process between controllers, views & parameters.

6. Can use Castle.Validation in order to validate our business objects. (Sweet)

7. Ask Egozi about client side validation .vs. server side validation in MonoRail. (Castle.Component.Validation integrates well into prototype’s Real-Easy-Field-Validation, as well as some more js validation libraries)

8. The controller can be injected with outside components (database, services etc) via Windsor, it’s integrated easily. (Another sweet spot)

9. TDD is easy (controller and view(should we?)), we can mock everything! Don’t forget to call PrepareController method (inside the base class). (Actually PrepareController is Per Controller, so usually it will be called in [SetUp] of each Fixture)

10. FormHelper & DictHelper should make our life easier. (and you can build your own Helpers easily)

11. Controller fills PropertyBag(view use it) & Flash (customer messages) – need to define a property in the view (make it string.Empty as default, if Flash[“property_name”] wasn’t filled).

12. Use Flash property (dictionary) and RedirectToReferrer method to “refresh” page.

13. Layout[“X”] – like master page! (I wouldn’t say “like MasterPage” as it’s just a simple ol’ view, but it gives you a common markup frame for your views, in a similar way of a WebForms’ MasterPage)

14. ViewComponent – like a custom control (without the dark magic of asp.net) but contains only UI rendering logic.

15. component:CaptureFor -> we can use it to add javascripts, css files into the html header in the “master page”. (dude - It’s a Layout, not a MasterPage ;) )

16. We can override the “default” render of the controls via sections in the markup (define sections will override it). (dude - It’s a component, not a control;) )

17. Egozi uses prototype (pasha as well?) as ajax framework. For Ajax – call CancelLayout method and RenderView(“name_of_view”). This is called SubView and we use it in the markup with <subView:name_of_view />. (Actually I tend to use prototype as a Javascript enhancement, where needed. If only ‘ajax’ calls are needed, jQuery or YAHOO.connection would be a better lightweight solution)

18. We can use the Cache attribute (MonoRail) over the controller method (aka “Action”) in order to avoid cacheability of urls (like Response.Exired = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1) or something like this). (You can also use Response.Cache as before, the attribute makes our code nicer)

19. We can use Filter for authentication – read about it a little. Each action on the controller will trigger this before running (or after).

20. PropertyBag uses string, eleutian solved it with a smart code generator (pre-build). Create typed Flash and PropertyBag if implementing interfaces. Read about it (ask Egozi for link). (it’s in **Castle.Tools.CodeGenerator on CastleContrib, and also look at their blog. The tool actually is being used for typing of your site’s Controllers, Actions, and Views. As a side effect, they have created DictionaryAdapter than can do the IDictionary<->TypedObject thing.And yuu can also hand-type PropertyBag and Flash.)**

Thanks Oren.