What is TypeScript? Why would i strongly recommend to use it in your next project

As all of us know, Building large applications in JavaScript is hard! It gets messy and hard to manage and test.

The Problem
Because of the nature of JavaScript, it is not "favorable & easy practice" for non JavaScript developers to write classes, modules, OOP code in an easy, clean and straight forward way.

This was the reason of the rising & popularity of JS libraries and frameworks such as: jQuery, Angular, Knockout and much more amazing js libraries.

Recently, I have been thinking to build a Hyprid mobile application using Cordova, and this open source platform helps developers to build cross platform native apps using standard web technologies in JS and HTML.

I was thinking what is the right and best approach to start structuring my project in an organized pattern such as MVC, so i have bunch of views and controllers and my code is clean to build robust solution!

The Solution
You have different ways to implement this, One is to use Angular JS library that helps you strcture your code in a MVC patterns and design your views that are linked to models and js files that have all your controllers implementations.

Another approach, is to use TypeScript which gives your the ability to write clean client scripting and it generates JS code for your and it works in all browsers!

If you are using any OOP programming language such as: C# or Java. It will so easy for you to add TypeScript (*.ts) file in your project and start writing classes, interfaces and all OOP code with IntelliSense and type casting capabilities within VS IDE.

So, you write C# Like code in TypeScript file, it generates JS code and it works in al browsers.

Here is a play ground site to test it some code and see generated code:
http://www.typescriptlang.org/Playground

The same site has tons of materials to learn, samples and get started:
http://www.typescriptlang.org/Tutorial


TypeScript is available and supported if you use VS 2013 (update 2) or VS 2015!

Hope this helps!

How to fix 'thumbprint' attribute is invalid error in Azure Cloud Service

Hi,

While i was configuring a web role in a cloud service project to use SSL certificate, I was adding my certificate to the Service Configuration file (cscfg) as follows:

  <Certificate name ="MyCertTest" thumbprint="cd947ee0b988e3b144d9fc39af47128dec68b731" thumbprintAlgorithm="sha1"/>
 

After i copied the thumbprint value from my certificate and paste it in the configuration file (cscfg) i found that there is an underlying error under thumbprint attribute and when i build i get the following error:

the xml specification is not valid: the 'thumbprint' attribute is invalid the pattern constraint failed


Here is the steps on how to fix it:

1) Remove any spaces from the thumbprint value.
2) There was a hidden character at the beginning and end of this string and once i removed it the underlying error in the cscfg file went away.
3) Save your changes and build!
4) Deploy your cloud service to Azure.


Hope this helps.

How to return JSON objects from Web API 2

Hi All,

I was trying to return an object from web api 2.0 and i was getting the following error:

The 'ObjectContent`1' type failed to serialize the response body for content type 'application/xml; charset=utf-8'.

The inner exception message was stating the following:

Type 'Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JToken' is a recursive collection data contract which is not supported. Consider modifying the definition of collection 'Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JToken' to remove references to itself.


Sample method:

[HttpGet]
[ResponseType(typeof(ChargifyTransaction))]      
public async Task<MyObject> GetTransactionDetails(string transactionId)

{

   MyObject obj = new MyObject();
   obj.Id=123222;
   obj.Name = "Mostafa dev";
   
   return obj;
}

The solution:

Add the following 2 lines in Global.asax file under App_Start method, This will force the web api to return Json formats and to ignore references to itself for Newtonsoft.Json dll.



 protected void Application_Start()
        {
            // Force to use Json formatter and ignore reference looping.
            GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings.ReferenceLoopHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;
            GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Remove(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.XmlFormatter);


           }


Hope this helps.

How to: Create ASP.NET MVC Authentication tables in an existing database

Hi All,

I am writing this blog post to show how to migrate or move the standard MVC authentication tables into your existing database in your asp.net web application.

Background
When you create a MVC web application in VS 2013, VS embed a sql server database in your project, and this project is being used as a source of asp.net membership. Since you will not use this database as an embedded file and you want to have it as part of your existing database in SQL Server instance. The file is created under App_Data folder. To see the .mdf file click on Show all files in the solution explorer.
You can see the contents of this database and all tables in the server explorer window.

How to create those tables in SQL server ?

First, you can delete the .mdf file in App_Data folder. Since we don't need any of these tables.Then, we need to update the default connection string in the web.config to point to our database.

<connectionStrings>
    <add name="DefaultConnection" connectionString="Data Source=SERVER\INSTANCENAME;Initial Catalog=DBNAME;Integrated Security=True" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
  </connectionStrings>


Third, Open Nuget Package Manager and write the following commands:

Enable-Migrations
Add-Migration Init
Update-Database

Check out your database, all ASP.NET membership tables with Prefix Asp have been create and then you can test it out by running your application and execute membership actions such as Signing up or Signing in to your application.

Created tables after running above commands:
AspNetRoles
AspNetUserClaims
AspNetUserLogins
AspNetUserRoles
AspNetUsers
__MigrationHistory


Hope this helps.

Thanks

-- ME

Platform Not supported Exception when running Visual Studio Web Application

Hi All,

While i was developing a web application that creates an instance of a custom service application using Visual Studio 2013, I was getting this error:

Exception Type: PlatformNotSupportedException

Details:

Microsoft SharePoint is not supported in 32-bit process. Please verify that you are running in a 64-bit executable.

I have another SharePoint web part project that connects with no issues to the SharePoint custom service app, but this web application is throwing this exception! so, the error is related to the IIS express which is the default IIS for VS 2013 web projects.

The error will exist or be thrown when you create any SharePoint object such as: SPSite to connect and then implement your logic.

I googled little bit and i found that some blogs were saying to un check the prefer 23 bit under Build tab in the project properties, In my case this check is grayed out so i don't have the option to un check it.

In addition to that, by default all SharePoint projects or Web Projects are targeting AnyCPU, so you shouldn't change this specially if you are connecting or integrating with SharePoint.


The fix:
1) Right click on the web project that you are having this error and click on the web tab.
2) Under Servers, change the selection from IIS express to Local IIS, This will use the local IIS instance which is a 64 bit installation of your SharePoint Development machine.
- Note: This will allow VS 2013 to create a virtual directory and attach the process, so you will be able to debug once you hit F5.
3) Run you project, the code works with no exception when creating any SharePoint object such as a Site or Web...etc.

SharePoint Development Machine Configuration: Win Server 2008 R2 64 bit, VS 2013 latest release.

Happy SharePointg!!