One of my favorite controls available in the MvcContrib is the Grid component.

I’ve been using it for quite awhile.  They have decided to rewrite, but thankfully they include the older grid for legacy purposes  – which will allow me to refactor and take advantage of the new grid.

Information on the new Grid – documentation for it – can be found here:

http://www.jeremyskinner.co.uk/2009/02/08/rewriting-the-mvccontrib-grid/

It’s built using a nice fluent interface style:

ie.

<%= Html.Grid(Model.People).Columns(column => {
     		column.For(x => x.Id).Named("Person ID");
     		column.For(x => x.Name);
     		column.For(x => x.DateOfBirth).Format("{0:d}");
     	})
        .Attributes(style => "width:100%")
     	.Empty("There are no people.")
     	.RowStart(row => "<tr foo='bar'>") %>

It has paging support as well:

<%= Html.Grid(Model.People).Columns(column => {
     		column.For(x => x.Id).Named("Person ID");
     		column.For(x => x.Name);
     		column.For(x => x.DateOfBirth).Format("{0:d}");
}) %>   <%= Html.Pager(Model.People) %>

All of this information can be found at the link above.

As per the release page of MvcContrib, if you have been using the previous Grid, you can reference it’s new namespace:

The original grid has been moved to the MvcContrib.UI.LegacyGrid namespace and will continue to function as before. The new grid is located in MvcContrib.UI.Grid

This will look like the following in your web.config:

<add namespace="MvcContrib"/>

<add namespace="MvcContrib.UI.Html"/>

<add namespace="MvcContrib.UI.Grid"/>

<add namespace="MvcContrib.UI.LegacyGrid"/>

(And by the way: definitely add namespaces in the web.config vs. the individual pages !  YAGNI lol)

Scott shared today on some changes coming to the asp.net mvc release candidate.

I. He starts with the option (default now) of ‘no-code behind’ pages.  Very nice!

ie. Inherits=”System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<Model>”

(I’m not sure how this will work with generics (ie. a simple view of IList<Things>)

Personally I think this is a great move.  99% of my files don’t have code behind – and the only ones that ‘did’ were refactored (I had used a repeater on a few pages, then later replaced with the MvcContrib Grid)

II. The HTML/Ajax helpers will now enable expression syntax.

I’ve been doing something similiar lately after examing how the MvcContrib Gridview was built, in order to do other controls with jquery, ie. TabViews, Treeviews, etc…

I hope and think that this will greatly speed up the development of those controls.

III. Scaffolding support

This one looks interesting – definitely check it out.  At the very least, I see it as a RAD capability, that would then allow easy modification if needed. 

IV. MSBuild Tasks for the View

(Hey Ryan!) – this is excellent news!  I’ve told my friend Ryan several times – ‘I wish the build would pick up on any html helper errors’.  This will save a ton of time, as it wouldn’t be until runtime that a problem would be spotted (although Resharper was good as picking it up – *if* you saw it – lol)

So, looks like more goodies, the framework begins to flush out a bit – looks all good – and nothing that appears to be major breaking changes (whew).  But we’ll see… the cost of doing MVC… 100% worth it.

I probably spoke or mentioned of this before, however I really started to use Phil Haacks ‘Controller Grouping’, aka ‘Areas’ sample code – and I really like the concept.

I’m using this currently to consolidate my library of html helpers, to build up samples of using asp.net mvc with jQuery, ExtJs, etc…

The beauty of this is how ‘pluggable’ areas are – each with their own set of unique files: controllers, views, models with a centralized way of accessing them.

As a former Monorails user, I find it extremely important and hope that this is actually built into asp.net mvc.

The scenario that areas address is being able to partition your application into discrete areas of functionality. It helps make managing a large application more manageable and allows for creating distinct applets that you can drop into an application.

From the blog you can download a sample prototype here.

I’m going to continue building up my ‘samples’ project with areas and see how it plays out, any gotcha’s on the way, etc…

I’d say that even if you don’t use the areas, building this in as a easy way to expand your solution is a great concept.

Great stuff!

(Here is another take on this approach by Steve Sanderson)

Jon Curtis has blogged about his XForms for Asp.net MVC

From his blog:

What is it?

MVC XForms is a simple, strongly-typed UI framework for MVC based on the W3C XForms specification. It provides a base set of form controls that allow updating of any complex model object, even complex nested lists. The goals are:

• To allow automatic form population, deserialization and validation based on the (arbitrarily complex) model.
• To produce semantic HTML forms using the logic of XForms.
• To output clean, terse HTML.
• No javascript, unless necessary and always optional and unobtrusive.
• To enable clean, terse view code.
• To make the framework as extensible and customisable as possible without compromising simplicity or the above goals.
• Use convention over configuration and a fluent API.

An example of usage:

<%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="Mvc.XForms.Examples.Customer.Details" MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/Site.Master" %>
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="Content" runat="server">
<% Html.XForm(ViewData.Model.Customer).Form(form => { %>
    <%= form.Input(c => c.Name) %>
    <%= form.Input(c => c.DateOfBirth) %>
    <%= form.Select1(a => a.Country, ViewData.Model.Countries, c => c.ID, c => c.Name) %>
    <%= form.Input(c => c.IsActive).Label("Is Active?") %>
    <%= form.Submit() %>
<% }); %>
</asp:Content>

And it’s corresponding output:

<form action="" method="post" class="xf xform">
    <div class="xf input text">
        <label for="Name">Name</label>
        <input id="Name" type="text" name="Name" value=""/>
    </div>
    <div class="xf input date">
        <label for="DateOfBirth">Date Of Birth</label>
        <input id="DateOfBirth" type="text" name="DateOfBirth" value=""/>
    </div>
    <div class="xf select1">
        <select id="Country" name="Country">
            <option value="1" selected="selected">UK</option>
            <option value="2">USA</option>
            <option value="3">France</option>
            <option value="4">Italy</option>
        </select>
    </div>
    <div class="xf input boolean">
        <input id="IsActive" type="checkbox" value="true" name="IsActive"/>
        <input type="hidden" value="false" name="IsActive"/>
        <label for="IsActive">Is Active?</label>
    </div>
    <div class="xf submit">
        <input type="submit"/>
    </div>
</form>

I like this syntax (actually reminds me somewhat of the asp.net mvc grid I like in codeplex)

Jon has created a CodePlex site for the XForms located here.

I’m really going to be watching this project – good work Jon!