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Posts related to: Web Development
Using Browser-Sync to live refresh Server Side HTML and Script Changes
Live reloading is common in client side applications, but server side applications generally don't have the ability to automatically reload when a server side change is made. But there are tools that allow you to monitor your local development Web server - even non-NodeJs based ones - and can automatically reload the active page when a change is detected. In this post I look at how to use Browser Sync to be more productive
Conference Materials from Southwest Fox
I've posted my session notes for Southwest Fox. This post contains links to samples, slides and white papers on SOAP Web Services, Mobile and Angular Web applications.
Web Connection 6.0 Feature: New Project Server Configuration Script
Web Connection 6.0 introduces a new MyApp_ServerConfig.prg file that is generated with new projects that can automatically configure your Web site with IIS. The Fox code can be modified but by default works to configure a Web site. You can compile the PRG into its own EXE file or embed it as part of your server via command line switch.
Single File Image Uploads with plUpload and Web Connection
Web Connection has included plUpload support for a while, but it uses the hefty plUpload Queue component which provides a rich UI. If your needs are simpler, you can also use the raw programmatic plUpload API directly to handle uploads. In this post I show how the new image uploader on the West Wind Message Board is implemented using the raw plUpload base client API and Web Connection's plUploadHandler.
Access-Control-Allow-Origin Header in West Wind Web Connection
When trying to access Web Connection served JSON data from mobile device applications or from Web applications hosted on other domains you might have found that you run into Cross-site access restrictions of the XHR calls that don't allow the cross site calls. Luckily there's an easy work around using the CORS protocol that allows your server to specify which domains it allows to access your content.
Use wwJsonSerializer to create Sample Data
When creating Sample code it's often tedious to create sample data structures in code. In some situations using a JSON string and then encoding the string to JSON can save some time and make it much easier to visualize the data structure that's being built.
SSL Vulnerabilities and West Wind Products
In light of today's SSL POODLE vulnerability announcements I've been inundated with questions regarding security in Web Connection and wwHttp. In this post I go over a few of the things to check and whether they affect any of your West Wind products indirectly.
Creating .DLL Script maps with the Web Connection .NET Managed Module
Many old applications are being migrated to newer versions of IIS and for these newer versions we recommend using the managed module. However, many old applications are still stuck referencing the wc.dll ISAPI extension directly instead of using script maps. It turns out you can use .DLL as a script map extension with the .NET module. This post shows you how and why this is a good idea to go on IIS 7 and later if you absolutely must stick to explicit wc.dll usage.
Showing a Wait Message when submitting longer Requests
Form submissions to long running requests can be a problem in Web apps as users tend to be impatient and walk off or worse resubmit forms. To avoid this a little bit of JavaScript capturing onsubmit event of the form can go a long way to improve user experience with very little extra code, using the Web Connection client script library.
Publishing your Web Connection Web site from Visual Studio
Visual Studio includes a Web Deploy feature that makes it easy to publish content from your projects to a live Web site. Until recently you couldn't do this with Web Connection content, but since VS 2012 Update 2 you can now publish from Web Site Projects. Here's all you need to know on how to publish and organize your project for publishing.
Web Connection Tip: Virtual Path Resolving with ~/
Making sure that all links and css and script references are linked relatively in your application is crucial. Page relative paths work great, but sometimes you need to use virtual relative paths from within code or components that don't have generic access to the current page path. Web Connection supports automatic fixup for ~/ based paths to replace the virtual path - take advantage of it. Here's how.
Using IIS Express with West Wind Web Connection
Web Connection 5.65 adds support for running Web Connection sites on IIS Express, which is a self contained, installable and very small version of IIS that can be run on most Windows machines with minimal to no configuration. It's a great way to develop locally without a full copy of IIS. Here's more on what you need to know.
SouthwestFox Sessions Slides, Samples and Links
I've posted my session white papers, slides and examples from the Southwest Fox conference last month. My two sessions where FoxPro and .NET Interop related and covered a few new recent developments that have improved the ease with which Interop can be done.
UTF-8 Encoding with West Wind Web Connection
UTF-8 Encoding is ubiquous on the Web and with good reason: It simplifies display of extended characters in a consistent manner that's easily handled by browsers and non-visual HTTP clients. Although not the default encoding format, UTF-8 encoding is easily configured in Web Connection with a couple of commands. Here's how.
Root Path Support with ~ in Web Connection Response Output
Web Connection includes a small but unobvious feature that can properly fix up virtual paths. Here's how it works and why you should take advantage of it.