Royal Tutorials

EPiServer get all page types

Björn Ali Göransson — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:32:04 +0000

To get all page types in EPiServer, use the following code:

var pageTypes = EPiServer.DataAbstraction.PageType.List();

Could not load type System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage

Björn Ali Göransson — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:32:50 +0000

This error happens when Mvc is included, but not told to intercept requests in the correct way. It can be fixed by adding the following attributes to your pages section in Web.config:


  pageParserFilterType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewTypeParserFilter, System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
  pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage, System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
  userControlBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl, System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
>

System.Web.Mvc.HtmlHelper does not contain a definition for RenderPartial

Björn Ali Göransson — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:29:41 +0000

This error happens because while Mvc is loaded, the Html extensions are not. This can be fixed by adding a namespace entry under the pages section in your Web.config:

EPiServer create first user SqlServerMembershipProvider

Björn Ali Göransson — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:07:21 +0000

In order to switch from SqlServerMembershipProvider/SqlServerRoleProvider and even WindowsMembershipProvider/MultiplexingMembershipProvider, you need to have an SQL user login, you need to have a user registered in the ASP.NET Membership system (preferrably being on of Administrators!).

To accomplish this, use the following code:

var username = "Foo";
var password = "Bar";
var email = "foo@bar.com";

Membership.CreateUser(username, password, email);
Roles.CreateRole("Administrators");
Roles.AddUserToRole(username, "Administrators");

This code can be added in a new, blank WebForm.aspx in the Page_Load event, or even temporarily pasted as <% %> inline code in an existent .aspx page.

Note that you already need to have switched over to SqlServerRoleProvider/SqlServerMembershipProvider in Web.config to use this code. Then, try to log in with the specified username and password.

IIS pickup directory

Björn Ali Göransson — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:50:15 +0000

To specify the pickup directory when sending emails using settings in Web.config, use the following code for your mailSettings section in Web.config:

Also, remember to use System.Net.Mail, not System.Web.Mail – it doesn’t use settings specified in Web.config.

ASP.NET User Control controls are null

Björn Ali Göransson — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:34:28 +0000

When including a Web User Control in ASP.NET, sometimes your child controls may all be null when Page_Load and OnLoad are executed.

This occurs when the control class is referred directly through import directives, and not the .ascx.

(Thought you saved time by including the entire namespace? Wrong!)

The .ascx extends its CodeBehind class, which is mixed with its designer class, and these 3 combined results in the User Control which you have made in design time.

So the .ascx knows of its CodeBehind (it’s referenced at the <%@ Control %> directive), but there is no reference from the CodeBehind to the .ascx. In other words, if you fail to invoke the .ascx, and just the CodeBehind class, no initialization logic (resulting from your .ascx markup) will be executed. As such, you will get loads of “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” exceptions.

To fix this, remove the <%@ Register Assembly="" %> directive importing your class (in the including file – not the offending User Control), and replace it with a directive that includes the .ascx:

<%@ Register TagPrefix="Foo" TagName="Bar" Src="~/Templates/QDCMS/Units/Static/Bar.ascx" %>

C# DateTime compare dates

Björn Ali Göransson — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:44:27 +0000

To just compare the dates (not the times) of two DateTime objects, use the following code:

public static bool IsSameDayAs(DateTime a, DateTime b)
{
  return a.Year == b.Year && a.Month == b.Month && a.Day == b.Day;
}

This can easily be made into an extension method:

public static bool IsSameDayAs(this DateTime a, DateTime b)
{
  return a.Year == b.Year && a.Month == b.Month && a.Day == b.Day;
}

Now, you can use the method as in the following example:

DateTime foo == …

if(foo.IsSameDayAs(DateTime.Now)){
  // foo date is today!
}

Possible multiple enumeration

Björn Ali Göransson — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:40:00 +0000

This error occurs when using Enumerations (often in combination with LINQ) in .NET, when using ReSharper.

Enumerations preserve position state (they remember their current position in the enumeration) , and thus one Enumeration can impossibly be accessed by several code blocks simultaneously.

To solve this, make a list of the collection:


var myList = myEnumeration.ToList(); // Note: This will enumerate the collection

This way, when enumerating the list, new Enumerators will be created when needed.

WordPress change language

Björn Ali Göransson — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:04:00 +0000

To change the language of the admin/members area of a WordPress installation after installing, you must do the following steps:

Download a language .mo file
Enable the language file in wp-config

Step 1: Download a language `.mo` file

Go to the WordPress in your language page, and find the language in which you want the admin area to appear.

If WordPress is available in your language, you will have to follow the correct link from that section on the page, and from there find a language file that end with .mo. This is usually the hardest part, so I’ve made a small list of the .mo files I could find.

I think the plan is to integrate all language branches into the official WordPress internationalization repository. But, as of now, not much can be found there.

Azeri - arabic letters
Azeri - roman letters
Bangla (file is zipped)
Bulgarian
Esperanto
Estonian
Faroese
Magalasy

Most of the time, the .mo files can be found only in the WordPress installation zip. I have compiled a list of those languages, too.

When downloading these packages, copy the whole languages/ folder from wp-content/ into the wp-content/ folder of your site.

Step 2: Enable the language file in `wp-config`

Now navigate to the site root of your WordPress installation, and open the file wp-config.php. Every site has one.

Here, at around line 72, there will be a line similar to this one:

define ('WPLANG', '');

Now go to your languages/ folder inside wp-content/ and look for the xx_XX.mo file that you just added. For example, in swedish, it will be called sv_SE.mo.

This xx_XX name is what you’re supposed to write (without the .mo) inside the quotation marks in wp-config.php.

For Swedish, the code will now look like this:

define ('WPLANG', 'sv_SE');

Now go to your admin/member area of you WordPress site, and reload the page. It should now be in the language of your choosing!

What’s blocking port 80?

Björn Ali Göransson — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:08:17 +0000

To find out what’s blocking port 80 on a Windows machine, start a windows command prompt (cmd.exe) – this probably needs Administrator privilegies – and type the following command:

netstat -ab

And look for the line saying 0.0.0.0:80. The following line should have the .exe file named in brackets.

This should be the result when the Apache HTTPD server is blocking:

… (lots of lines) …
  TCP    0.0.0.0:80             Foo:0               LISTENING
 [httpd.exe]
… (lots of lines) …

If you cannot find it (there may be a lot of lines to scan through), this little command should be helpful (also in command +3prompt, with Administrator privilegies):

FOR /f "tokens=5" %G IN ('netstat -ano ^| findstr "0.0.0.0:80"') DO tasklist /v | findstr %G