How are the use of layers in Orchard CMS?

What is Layer?

A layer is a group of widgets (with their specific configuration, which includes their positioning -zone name and ordering-) that is activated by a specific rule.

For example, the TheHomePage layer is activated by a rule that specifically selects the home page. The Default layer is always active no matter what page is displayed.

The Authenticated layer is only active when users have identified themselves. When more than one layer is active on any given page, all the widgets from all those layers get displayed at the same time. Orchard orders them based on their position string.

What is the use of Layer?

Layers change the layout of your new page without affecting the rest of the site you can create a new layer for a specific pages by specifying layer rule. These help to render some content on a specific location of the page except other pages does not change.

See the below example:

Adding a New Page to Your Site

1. In the Orchard Dashboard, under New, select Page.
2. Enter a title for the page. When you enter a title for the page and save it (for example, "Download"), the permalink (URL) for the page will be filled in automatically ("download"). You can edit this link if you prefer a different URL.
3. Enter some text for the content page body.
   
   
4. In the Tags field, add comma-separated tags such as "download" and "Orchard" so that you can search and filter using those tags later.
5. Check Show on main menu and enter the menu text ("Downloads") to use in the site's main menu.
6. Select Publish Now to make the updates to the page visible immediately. You can also save the page as a draft (to edit later before publishing), or you can choose to publish the page at a specific date and time.
   
   
   
7. Select Your Site in the upper-left side of the Dashboard to view the modified home page with the new menu. Clik Downloads and you will see your new page.

Adding New Layer for a Page

To change the layout of your new page without affecting the rest of the site you can create a new layer, that will be applied only to the Downloads page. Then you can place some widgets on that layer and they will be visible only in the Downloads page.

1. Go to the Dashboard and select Widgets. Then click add a new layer to add a new layer for this page which will allow you to customize the layout for the new page at a later point in time.
   
   
2. Write a name for the layer, a description, and a layer rule: url"~/download". This will instruct the Orchard System to show the widgets in this layer only when the url of the browser is pointing to "download". Select Save.
   
   

Adding a New HTML Widget

1. To check that your layer rule is working you can add a widget to it. Ensure that Current Layer is Download. Click Add in AsideFirst.
   
   
2. Add a new Html Widget.
   
3. Write a title and a body for it. Save it.
   
   
4. Select Your Site in the upper-left side of the Dashboard. Navigate to Downloads. You should see the custom layout.
   

Now you will see that ‘Downloads’ page has different layout rather than other pages because it uses different layer except other pages use different.

How to configure log4net in .NET projects?

log4net is an open source library that help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets in .NET .
Here we are going setup logging using the Log4Net. Below are the necessary step to get Log4Net in the project and configure it:

1. Right click on the solution in the “Solution Explorer” and select “Manage Nuget Packages for Solutions..”
   
   
   
   Now search for the log4net using the search box and you will find the log4net by Apache Software foundation. The another thing need to remember is that you have to select the projects on the right side where log4net reference is required. It should be in start up project and another projects are optional to add the reference of the log4net.
   
   After this you will find log4net in referenced libraries of the selected projects.
   
   
   
   This can be done by running the “Install-Package” command on the “Package Manager Console” as seen in below image:
   
   
   
   Alternative, you can download the binaries from Apache.Org website and reference them manually in the project where logging is required’'.
   
2. Now you need to configure log4net to log the information or errors to different targets e.g Console, file, database etc. Right now we are going to configure it for the easiest way to log the information.
   
   Using log4net is a three stage process. First thing we need to do is configure log4net. For an example, below are simple steps to configure the BasicConfigurator.
   

   log4net.Config.BasicConfigurator.Configure();

   In second step, is to get Logger object using the static method GetLogger of the LogManager to log using the log4net:
   

   var log = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(Program));

   After that use the logger object to log the message:
   
   

   log.Info("Exception Message");

   
   

Complete code snippet:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Log4NetConsoleCSharp
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            log4net.Config.BasicConfigurator.Configure();

            var log = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(Program));

            log.Info("Exception Message");

            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

If we run the program then it will show log message in console.

CodeRush for Roslyn is now available RTM Version

 

CodeRush helps the developers to write, refactor, navigate and debug C# and VB source code faster and more efficiently. Along this CodeRush includes the world's fastest .NET test runner which helps developers to complete software development tasks with less effort (both physical and cognitive), and in less time.

What makes this CR for Roslyn better than Classic version?

This newer version of CodeRush for Roslyn uses significantly less memory, works faster, and lets the Visual Studio to start faster the CodeRush Classic. It leverages Visual Studio's solution-parsing data and automatically supports new C# and VB language features as they become available in Visual Studio.

Features provided by CR for Roslyn:

1. Visualize Code and Intuitively Debug
2. Move at Warp Speed
   It helps to find symbols and files quickly in your solution and easily navigate to code constructions related to the current context. CodeRush includes the Quick Navigation and Quick File Navigation features, which make it fast and easy to find symbols and open files.

Navigation features are available via the Navigation menu, which can be invoked using the Ctrl+Alt+N shortcut.

3. Validate Quality Faster
   CodeRush lets you create new test cases or new test suites in a single keystroke. CodeRush for Roslyn automatically detects unit tests for NUnit, xUnit, MSpec and MSTest frameworks, and can optionally run tests located across multiple assemblies concurrently. The Test Runner also runs CoreCLR test cases in the DNX environment. The Sessions support makes it very easy to organize tests and run only those that are required.
4. Code Refactoring
5. Code Analysis
6. Code Formatting and Cleanup
7. many more…

Complete feature comparison matrix between CodeRush editions is available at Download Classic or Roslyn Version.

When to use CodeRush Classic or CodeRush for Roslyn?

Microsoft’s has started new way of development in Open Source world with the  paradigm “Compiler as a service”. Now Microsoft has lots of open source projects including the .NET Compiler Platform (“Roslyn”).NET Compiler Platform (“Roslyn”). The .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn") provides open-source C# and Visual Basic compilers with rich code analysis APIs. You can build code analysis tools with the same APIs that Microsoft is using to implement Visual Studio!.

According to these dramatic changes in the development on the Microsoft platform lots of tools are adopting ways to move along these. After a while again I got chance to install CodeRush in Visual Studio IDE and I there are two different flavours of CodeRush. This makes me little confuse that which one should i install to work with.

After checking through documentation and ready some blog posts related to my question I got that When to use this newer version of CodeRush for Roslyn or CodeRush Classic. Actually CodeRush Classic work with the prior version of .NET Framework 4.6. With this newer version of .NET framework which is shipped with the Microsoft’s open source projects which based on the Rosyln compiler platform. Below are points which help you to decide that which version suits to your development environment:

1. If you are using Visual Studio  2015 and .NET framework 4.6 (above) then CodeRush classic does work for you. In this case you should install CodeRush for Roslyn. This does not has all the feature of the CodeRush Classic but newer version will defiantly improve this open source stack.
   
2. If you are working with older version of .NET Framework then you’ll need CodeRush Classic. If you need both, you can install both versions simultaneously and defiantly i try this too.
   
3. CodeRush Classic supports C# 5.0, VB10, ASP.NET, HTML, JavaScript, XML, and XAML. In this case, for the newer version of language CodeRush for Roslyn is the only option and may be in near future Classic version of CodeRush go obsolete.

Learning and source of information:
CodeRush
.NET Developer Tooling: The Roslyn Revolution
CodeRush on Roslyn

How to add Intellisense to Visual Studio Code for bootstrap

Peoples who are habitual of using intellisense in Visual Studio and suddenly it is found missing then they really get mad during the work. Today I am trying to create some html pages with bootstrap for learning. I was feeling little hard to do code with bootstrap, because I am not able remember all of the class names of the bootstrap.

There are lots of glyphicon classes which is hard to remember. Visual Studio has this nice feature by adding JavaScript library path to the “_references.js” file and after that everything available in autosuggest mode.

What happened with me, I am not able to find the correct gylphicon class name without intellisense. Regarding this I have googled and found that this feature is not currently available in VS Code right now. However, it has been added as a feature request for upcoming updates.

Do not disappoint, There is also hope to do work with intellisense in VSCode. You can use extension"HTML CSS Class Completion".

Open Command Palette by press ctrl+ship+p Then run  “ext install HTML CSS Class Completion” to install this extension. Check the results in below image to see after enabling this extension.

Happy coding!

Customize context menu in Nevron Diagram

Scenario:

I had a requirement for preventing user to edit the “Composite Shape” elements (e.g. Text Primitives, Ports etc.). This restriction is required during the development for most of the cases because programs are using these shapes for some special purpose representation and these should not be altered by the use at run time to keep them consistent.

If user change these shapes then it will be hard to know that it has been modified this diagram is saved as XML string in some data store. If shape elements are used to identify the shape elements by name then it will break the program for being consistent for these shapes. See the below image, If the edited port name is used in program to  identity the center port then it will be distinguish the center  port in all of these ports.




Finally, it is required to remove some commands from the context menu of the shape in the diagram view for the user so that user will not able to modify the shape elements.

Solution:

At first place, you need to use the “Protection” on the shape to prevent some operation. You can restrict few operation on the shape for the user.




These can be set programmatically, these are just for making restrictions on the shape not for the context menu operations. See below code example:

NAbilities shapeAbilities = new NAbilities();
shapeAbilities.All = false;
shapeAbilities.InplaceEdit = true;
shapeAbilities.ResizeX = true;
shapeAbilities.ResizeY = true;
shapeAbilities.Export = false;
NShape shape = (NShape)nDrawingDocument1.ActiveLayer.Children(null)[0];
shape.Protection = shapeAbilities;

Real Solution The simplest solution is that create a custom context menu builder for creating context menu for the current diagram view.  This will create/add the required command that you want to provide to the user while working in the diagram.
First create a Custom ContextMenuBuilder by inheriting “NDiagramContextMenuBuilder” class and override “BuildContextMenu” method. There you need to create the context menu and add the required commands to the created context menu.

internal class CustomContextMenuBuilder : NDiagramContextMenuBuilder
{
    public override NContextMenu BuildContextMenu(object obj)
    {
        NContextMenu contextMenu = new NContextMenu();
        contextMenu.Commands.Add(CreateCommand((int)DiagramCommand.Delete, false));

        return contextMenu;
    }
}

After that create an instance of this custom context menu builder and assign it to the ContextMenuBuilder property of your diagram command bars manager:

nDiagramCommandBarsManager1.ContextMenuBuilder = new CustomContextMenuBuilder();

Create and preview website page using Visual Studio Code

Today is the first day when i have used Visual Studio code after uninstalling the Bracket. Bracket has nice feature live preview to run the html document in the browser. I was expecting the same in Visual Studio code but it took me half an hour to figure that how to run the html from VSCode. VSCode use Node.js for most of the work to be done.
Finally i have figure out that how to start a small project, containing only a single HTML file in VSCode and edit it with preview in a browser similar to live preview feature in Bracket. I have all my tools setup to start creating my first project in VSCode but if you are not installed VSCode and Node.js then download VSCode and Node.js.  You can find little bit information to install Node.js here.
After you have done installation of the Node.js, either you need to setup the PATH variables in windows or the setup automatically done this work for you. You can verify this by typing below command on command prompt that Node package manager is globally accessible or not:

npm -v

Now it the right time to setup the webserver. Run the below command on the command prompt:

npm install -g live-server

Now create a html file in VSCode configured folder.

To preview the html document, run the below command at the project folder.

live-server

It is also possible to see the live preview in VSCode split windows. You have follow below steps to do this:

1. Create a live-view.md file with this in it (Place it wherever you want. I put it at the base folder of all my projects since I can use it for whatever I'm currently working on):
   

   <div style="border:1px solid #777;
   position:absolute;left:10px;top:10px;bottom:10px;right:10px;"> 
     <iframe src="http://localhost:8080/"; width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" /> 
   </div>
   

2. Open live-view.md in the second/split pane in VS Code and click the "Open preview" button (top right of file).

Happy coding.