1. Install msysGit  http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
2. Create a SSH key using Bash (id_rsa and id_rsa.pub)
3. Install TortoiseSVN
1. Use plink 

1. Use puttyGEN, which comes with TortoiseGit, to create a Putty private key from id_rsa like so:
   puttyGen –>
   Conversions –>
   Import Key –>
   Open %userprofile%\.ssh\id_rsa –>
   Save Private Key as private.ppk (or whatever you want)
2. Register your Public Key (id_rsa.pub) with GitHub i.e. Copy/paste the text inside the file into your Github account SSH Key (https://github.com/account –> SSH Public Keys)
   

• Set your details from the Git Bash command line. The token is available from your Github Account Settings.
  
  git config –global user.name “Your Name”
  git config –global user.email “your@email.com”
  git config –global github.user your-github-name
  git config –global github.token your-github-token
  
• Get the Repository’s Read + Write SSH URL
  
• Clone the repository to a folder using TortoiseGit

1. Load the putty key %userprofile%\.ssh\private.ppk  if that is where you saved it.

Disclaimer

This is a rough summary of what to do, and more of a reminder to my future self. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

I was just applying for a small two week contract that was based on Localisation. This is the work I did to give myself a quick refresh. It reminded me on how well Asp.Net MVC3 works with RESX localisations.

As a start, you will need someway to change your Local Language quickly. My preferred choice is using the Quick Locale Switcher for Firefox which is in the image.

I have (over the last few hours) built up a fully translated version of the default MVC3 project which is viewable at http://resxstuff.adventureswith.net and is viewable as 2 languages available English (Which is default) and French (which is terribly translated BTW).

Turn On The World – Enable Globalisation

To enable globalisation, you will need to add this line to your web.config  in the <system.web></system.web> section:

<globalization uiCulture="auto" culture="auto"/>

Add the RESX files; and let the class be seen

If you are coming from Web Forms, note that for MVC you DO NOT HAVE TO (and perhaps should not) add your RESX to App_GlobalResourses or even App_LocalResources.

Just add them wherever you want and they can still be used, but only if you do the following:

• When you adda new RESX, Change the Access Modifier to Public

Otherwise you will be wondering why your resources don’t show up.

I followed the advice given by a few others to use the “RESX to a View” method, where you mimic the View folder structure within the Resources folder; as seen in the picture.

This usually means it is fairly easy to find the right file for the string that you want to change in a hurry.

Views – Changing out the text

I went through all the views and changed every “message to the user” into a string resource in a RESX file.

All the Html.LabelFor calls were replaced with resources calls
e.g. @Html.LabelFor (x => x.Username) became @Resources.Account.Register.Username

//Resource file is set with the Name as the Key
[Display(Name = "NewPassword", ResourceType = typeof(Resources.Language))]
public string NewPassword { get; set; }

//Razor syntax stays the same
@Html.LabelFor(x => x.NewPassword)

All boilerplate text was replaced with Resources e.g. “Login was unsuccessful. Please correct the errors and try again.” was pulled out of LogOn.cshtml and moved to Resources.Account.LogOn.Login_Unsuccessful

@Html.ValidationSummary(true, Resources.Account.LogOn.Login_Unsuccessful)

Controllers – Fixing up user messages

Essentially controllers are the same deal as the views. Take the static text, place it in a RESX file where it makes sense.

I used the files related to the views that were to be returned e.g. If an action method returned the Logon view, then I used the Logon.resx file for that text.

using Resources;

....
....
....
[HttpPost]
       public ActionResult Register(RegisterModel model)
        {
            if (ModelState.IsValid)
            {
                // Attempt to register the user
                MembershipCreateStatus createStatus;
                Membership.CreateUser(model.UserName, model.Password, model.Email, null, null, true, null, out createStatus);

                if (createStatus == MembershipCreateStatus.Success)
                {
                    FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(model.UserName, false /* createPersistentCookie */);
                    return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
                }
                else
                {
                    ModelState.AddModelError("", ErrorCodeToString(createStatus));
                }
            }

            // If we got this far, something failed, redisplay form
            return View(model);
        }

       private static string ErrorCodeToString(MembershipCreateStatus createStatus)
        {
            // See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=177550 for
            // a full list of status codes.
            switch (createStatus)
            {
                case MembershipCreateStatus.DuplicateUserName:
                    return ErrorStrings.Username_Exists;  //these are the resource strings
                case MembershipCreateStatus.DuplicateEmail:
                    return ErrorStrings.Email_Exists;
                case MembershipCreateStatus.InvalidPassword:
                    return ErrorStrings.Invalid_Password;
                case MembershipCreateStatus.InvalidEmail:
                    return ErrorStrings.Invalid_Email;
                case MembershipCreateStatus.InvalidAnswer:
                    return ErrorStrings.Invalid_Answer;
                case MembershipCreateStatus.InvalidQuestion:
                    return ErrorStrings.Invalid_Question;
                case MembershipCreateStatus.InvalidUserName:
                    return ErrorStrings.Invalid_Username;
                case MembershipCreateStatus.ProviderError:
                    return ErrorStrings.Provider_Error;
                case MembershipCreateStatus.UserRejected:
                    return ErrorStrings.User_Rejected;
                default:
                    return ErrorStrings.Default_Error;
            }
        }

Models & Validation

The only tricky part is this one. And it’s not even that tricky.

Instead of where you would normally put ErrorMessage=”Something bad happened here”, you would instead point it the RESX files.

All of the Validation attributes have the Properties ErrorMessageResourceType and ErrorMessageResourceName which are explained as follows:

• ErrorMessageResourceType – Points to the resource file type
• ErrorMessageResourceName – Points to the KEY within that resource file

It is sad that the key is not strongly typed, like in the rest of the code; this is the annoying nature of attributes.

So here we have the example of a model with resource friendly validation:

public class LogOnModel     {      

[Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(ErrorStrings), ErrorMessageResourceName = "Required")]
public string UserName { get; set; }         

[Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(ErrorStrings), ErrorMessageResourceName = "Required")]
[DataType(DataType.Password)]
public string Password { get; set; }  

}

RESX – Adding more languages

So now you have all the files in place to use the RESX files that have been created as you went along.

Adding RESX files for other languages is easy. Just copy, paste, rename and it works.

The naming convention is as follows (from lowest to highest priority):

• Default – mytranslation.resx
• Language – mytranslation.en.resx  or mytranslation.fr.resx
• Regional – mytranslation.en-GB.resx or mytranslation.en-US.resx

So how do you create these for more languages? Luckily there is a fantastic free opensource tool that is available. ResxTranslator from Codeplex is able to read all your RESX files in the project and help you out by creating the other languages.

After they are created, just include them in the project.

Just a note that I haven’t been able to create another language from inside ResxTranslator, by which I mean add a language that doesn’t already exist somewhere in the resx files already.

First, I have to first create a file with the language in the filename, as shown above, for it to show up as an option in the “Add Language” tool. But once I have added a language/dialect for one RESX, it is available for all files. Maybe I am missing something here.

Further Reading

Nadeem Afana – Internationalising MVC3
http://afana.me/post/aspnet-mvc-internationalization.aspx

K. Scott Allen – Resource Files and ASP.NET MVC Projects
http://odetocode.com/Blogs/scott/archive/2009/07/16/resource-files-and-asp-net-mvc-projects.aspx

Today I had the unfortunate situation of installing sample code files. This means downloading a MSI and then running it so it can place the sample code somewhere on your computer. I don’t think any developer can appreciate this. Where is the zip file?

Well, it kind of is a zip file. In a sense. You can run a command to output that pesky MSI to a folder. How?

Running as admin:

msiexec /a yourmsi.msi /qb TARGETDIR=c:\output_to_here\

Credit to neoice for answering this in StackOverflow

Glimpse is an amazing tool (that comes available with Nuget in Visual Studio 2010 [included in the Tools Update]) that can hook into the System.Diagnostic.Trace (ewww) to display error messages on your client side browser. Like so:

I don’t want to use System.Diagnostics as my Logging system. I could use it on the side, but not as the core. This would be awful and much too rigid. The good thing is, I typically use Common.Logging in all my projects because of it’s way to tie ANY LOGGING SYSTEM into a single point then ship those events off to any other receiving system. The receiving system in this case, is  of course, System.Diagnostics.Trace using the TraceLoggerFactoryAdapter

So to get to the point above this is what I did:

1. Using Create a new MVC project in VS2010
2. Nuget
   1. Install-Package Glimpse
   2. Install-Package Common.Logging
3. Add Common.Logging  to the web config

   <!--...config sections... -->
   <sectionGroup name="common">
         <section name="logging" type="Common.Logging.ConfigurationSectionHandler, Common.Logging" />
   </sectionGroup> 
   
   <!--...configuration... -->
   <common>
       <logging>
         <factoryAdapter type="Common.Logging.Simple.TraceLoggerFactoryAdapter, Common.Logging, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=af08829b84f0328e">
           <arg key="level" value="ALL" />
           <arg key="showLogName" value="true" />
           <arg key="showDataTime" value="true" />
           <arg key="dateTimeFormat" value="yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss:fff" />
         </factoryAdapter>
       </logging>
   </common>
   
   

4. Add some “problems”
5. Run the project and go to http://[your project url]/Gimpse/Configthen click “Turn Glimpse On”. Don’t be surprised that nothing happens.

   

6. Go to your main page http://[your project url]/ – See the icon in the right hand corner? Click that.
   
7. Look at those errors!

Conclusion?

Amazing! The guys who made Glimpse deserve some sort of medal!

So, you want AWStats on IIS7?  This doesn’t require a restart of IIS, so it can be done in place with no issues.

For IIS6, you will need to look elsewhere sorry. I’m also sorry you still have to deal with IIS6.

The 2 Required Files

If you got the error along the lines of

…./App_Data/Umbraco.config -  Access is denied.

Add the following into your web.config

<system.web>
<identity impersonate=”true”/>
</system.web>

It says to do  that in the error anyway

This is a pre release plug for safetaxi.info – a find a taxi service in London for people on the run. Not up yet, but when it is..oooohh

http://safetaxi.info

I hate ASP classic. I hate it with a passion. AND THEN when your browser crashes every time that you go to debug it, you start building muderous tendancies.

Anyway, Found a solution. Hot fix to VS 2008 that fixes this and a few things that I didnt care about.

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/KB967631

This QFE fixes three complete separate issues in the VS2008 SP1 Debugger:
- Debugger can hang the IDE after setting a breakpoint when working with a large C++ project
- Breakpoints do not bind correctly when an MSIL file is built containing .line directives
- VS crashes when debugging a classic ASP web and debugging is stopped.

Have watched a great presentation today from Scott Hanselman from the MIX 10 conference.

YOU MUST/NEED TO WATCH THIS!  -> Scott Hanselman presents the IIS Web Deploy

There were a few great ideas built in to his story, such as Web Deploy sitting on the back of a continuous integration setup and pushing out all the good stuff on successful build.

A problem I had while setting up Web Deploy was that there was no “Management Service Delegation” icon in IIS after installing the Web Deploy tool from the Web Platform Installer.

I solved it by downloading the actual install for the Web Deployment tool itself, then changing the setup so that IIS management items were installed. Voila! I have my icon:

Also, I had to add (for some unknown reason) an allow all IP range into my Management Service to stop 404 Errors.

credit to AndyFraley @ IIS Forum – Web Deploy thread – http://forums.iis.net/t/1163109.aspx

Ok, this is more of a hack than a true conversion, but I haven’t noticed the difference… yet.

Remember to back up what you’re not willing to lose!

1. Remove your MVC project from your solution. Don’t delete, just remove. Then save all (Shift-Ctrl-S)
2. Edit your MVC project *.csproj file and change the ProjectTypeGuids to:
   <ProjectTypeGuids>{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}</ProjectTypeGuids>
3. Add your project back into your solution and save everything