Haitham's Blog

Uploading Images Using FCKeditor with ASP.NET

2009-05-03T00:13:46Z

I’ve a project in which I need to insert images in the the FCKeditor working area.. I Thought it’s simple just press the insert image icon, browse for it and we are done, but actually it’s not that simple, it needs some configurations which I’d like to share it with you..

There are two scenarios of inserting an image weather you are going to insert it from a URL (the easy one) and the second if you want to insert an image from your hard drive (needs configurations)

A)To insert an image from a URL:

Just click the insert image icon and paste the URL of the image and click ok and its done.

B) To Upload image from your hard drive:

1- Create a base folder to be the folder used by the users of your website to upload photos in your application base directory, by default its name is “userfiles”, or name it whatever you need as we’ll use this name in the following steps.

2-Under this folder create another folder and you must name it “image”.

3- In the “fckconfig.js” file:

Change the following
- “var _FileBrowserLanguage = 'php' ;” to “var _FileBrowserLanguage = 'aspx' ;”
- “var _QuickUploadLanguage = 'php' ;” to “var _QuickUploadLanguage = 'aspx' ;”

Those two lines defines which File Browser connector and Quick Upload "uploader" to use.

4- In the previous step we defined the connector to be used that’s why the connector in the folder “FCKeditor\editor\filemanager\connectors\aspx” will be used, in this folder there is “Config.ascx'” file, open it using Visual Studio and do the following changes:

Change the following
- “UserFilesPath = "/userfiles/";” to “UserFilesPath = "~/userfiles/";”
- Note that you can replace “userfiles” by the folder name you used in step 1.

5- In the same File “Config.ascx” there is a function called “CheckAuthentication” which returns a true in case of the user is authenticated, for this function to communicate with you application it uses a session parameter name it anything you like and edit this function to check its value and return true to authenticate the user to upload images, to explain more I’d like to borrow the comment of the function from the “Config.ascx” as follows:

       // WARNING : DO NOT simply return "true". By doing so, you are allowing
        // "anyone" to upload and list the files in your server. You must implement
        // some kind of session validation here. Even something very simple as...
        //
        //return ( Session[ "IsAuthorized" ] != null && (bool)Session[ "IsAuthorized" ] == true );
        //
        // ... where Session[ "IsAuthorized" ] is set to "true" as soon as the
        // user logs in your system.

6- Now to insert an image from your hard drive

Click the insert image icon .
Click Browse Server.
A popup window will open, at the bottom click Browse, and browse for the image on your local hard drive and click upload.
The image is now uploaded to the “/userfiles/image” folder on the server.
click on the image name from the pop up window, then ok, and it’ll be inserted in the FCKeditor.

I hope this helps..

Microsoft Launches IE 8

2009-03-23T14:17:23Z

At last Microsoft has launched the IE 8 during the MIX09 Conference, with great hopes that it’ll retrieve the position of IE among currently popular browsers like Firefox which has stolen a part of the market share during the past few years against previous versions of IE..

During the launch and as a part of the marketing there was a video from Microsoft about the history of the web which shows some of the new features in IE 8, during the conference also there were some sessions about IE8 like the lab around IE8 by Giorgio Sardo, some of the new features and improvements in IE8 as per Microsoft website are :

Accelerators

Accelerators let you map directions, translate words, email your friends, and more in just a few mouse clicks. Learn more.

Common accelerator showing driving directions

InPrivate Browsing

Browse the web without saving your history with Internet Explorer 8's InPrivate Browsing. Now you can shop for that special gift with confidence knowing your family won't accidentally find out or use a shared computer without leaving a trace. Learn More.

The InPrivate button on the Address Bar

Web Slices

Keep up with changes to the sites you care about most. Add a Web Slice and you won't have to go back to the same website again and again for updates on news, stock quotes, online auctions, weather, or even sports scores. Learn more.

A common Web Slice

Search suggestions

Search smarter with detailed suggestions from your favorite search providers and browsing history. See visual previews and get suggested content topics while you type in the enhanced Instant Search Box. Learn more.

A search showing visual content

SmartScreen Filter

New security features help to protect you against deceptive and malicious websites which can compromise your data, privacy and identity. Learn more.

A blocked website because reported as unsafe

MIX09 The Web Developers Conference

2009-03-20T23:21:10Z

Take your web development and design skills to the next level at MIX09. Now in its fourth year, the MIX conference is a gathering of designers and developers who are building the world’s most innovative web sites.

The conference was from 18-20 March, 2009, in Las Vegas, I hope I can attend it one day may be next year I hope :)…

you can enjoy some of the conference sessions by visiting this link here

Enjoy it and wish me good luck to be there next year :)

Database Publishing Wizard (DPW)

2009-03-20T04:08:00Z

What will happen if you are hosting your database on a shared hosting environment like webhosting and you need to do some modifications on you database? for example adding new tables or something like this. this task is a true pain if you are going to create and execute a large number of SQL scripts against your hosted database, but by using the Database Publishing Wizard from Microsoft available to download here you have an easy to use tool to publish your database or parts of the database like some tables, stored procedures, users ..etc.

It also helps you to generate your database scripts and save them to your local hard drive for later use..really a great tool that will make your life much much easier, I’ve found a nice article on godaddy.com which can guide you to publishing your database from your local host to a database hosted in shared environment, keep in mind that to accomplish this task you need your host to have a Database Publishing Service, which is the service used by the Database Publishing Wizard to connect to and publish your database.. this article is available here

My First Blog Post

2009-03-10T09:52:00Z

Thanks a lot for reading this post, this is my first blog, in which I just wanted to highlight the topics that I'm going to publish in my blog (Haitham's Blog), I'm an ASP.NET Developer and in my blog I want to help you to take your ASP.NET application to the professional level, HOW?!! by focusing on the issues that will improve your application architecture, performance, security, maintainability and reliability...I hope I can help you to develop a real world applications, I'm really happy to share my knowledge with you and in the same time I'm ready to learn from you as well, so let's do it and move toward professional ASP.NET applications..