Category: ASP.NET

Rendering a View to a String – Email Templates in MVC4

Hey everyone,

This is just a short post showing how to render views as strings. I’ve used this as a quick way to generate email templates. The logic to render a view as a string is as follows:

public static string RenderRazorViewToString(Controller controller, string viewName, string content)
        {
            controller.ViewBag.Content = content;

            using (var sw = new StringWriter())
            {
                var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(controller.ControllerContext, viewName);
                var viewContext = new ViewContext(controller.ControllerContext, viewResult.View, controller.ViewData, controller.TempData, sw);
                viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
                viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(controller.ControllerContext, viewResult.View);

                return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
            }
        }

The Email Template: Views/Emails/DefaultTemplate

@{
    Layout = null;
}



    

    Easy Carts





    
    

        

            
                

                    

                                                   
                            @ViewBag.Content

In your controller:

public String TestEmail(String content)
        {
            Email email = new Email() {
                To = "lls@live.com.au",
                From = Email.Fields.From.NoReply,
                Body = content,
                Subject = "Test",
                TemplateName = @"~ViewsEmailsDefaultTemplate.cshtml",
                UseTemplate = true
            };
      
            email.SendEmail(this);
            
            db.Emails.Add(email);
            db.SaveChanges();

            return email.Body.ToString();
        }

If you looking to implement this with your emails, note that it builds on top of the email class we created back in this post: http://www.whatibroke.com/?p=963

If you’re just going to be using it directly within the controller, using the original code from over StackOverflow will probably be your best bet: http://stackoverflow.com/a/2759898/522859

Rails Flash Messages in MVC4

Hey everyone,

Coming from Rails I’d grown quite fond of flash messages. Unfortunately there isn’t a built in way of doing this in MVC4. Luckily, there’s a five minute solution posted on StackOverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/a/11809178/522859

Once implemented, it works just like in Rails:

this.Flash("We need you to login before you can edit anything.", FlashEnum.Warning);

Definitely worth checking out if you’ve got time, even more so if you’ve come over from Rails!

Sending Emails – MVC4 on GoDaddy

Hey everyone,

Just a really basic model that can be used to send emails on GoDaddy in MVC4.

The model:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Net.Mail;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

namespace LL.Models
{
    public class Email
    {
        [Key]
        public int EmailId { get; set; }

        public string From { get; set; }
        public string To { get; set; }
        public string Subject { get; set; }
        public string Body { get; set; }
        public DateTime Sent { get; set; }
        public string Status { get; set; }
        public string Log { get; set; }
        
        
        public void SendEmail()
        {
            MailMessage mail = new MailMessage();
            mail.To.Add(this.To);
            mail.From = new MailAddress(this.From);
            mail.Subject = this.Subject;
            mail.Body = Body;
            mail.IsBodyHtml = true;
            mail.Priority = MailPriority.Normal;
            
            SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
            smtp.Host = "relay-hosting.secureserver.net";
            smtp.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
            smtp.Port = 25;
            smtp.EnableSsl = false;  

            try
            {
                smtp.Send(mail);
                this.Status = Fields.Status.Success;
            }
            catch(Exception e)
            {
                this.Log = e.Message;
            }

            this.Sent = DateTime.Now;
        }

        [NotMapped]
        public class Fields
        {
            public class From
            {
                public const String NoReply = "noreply@yoursite.com.au";
                public const String Support = "support@yoursite.com.au";
            }

            public class Status
            {
                public const String Success = "Success";
                public const String Error = "Error";
            }
        }

    }
}

Using it in a controller:

using LearnerLessons.Models;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace LL.Controllers
{
    public class TestController : Controller
    {
        private LLDBContext db = new LLDBContext();
        
        public String TestEmail(String content)
        {
            Email email = new Email() { To = "lls@live.com.au", From = Email.Fields.From.NoReply, Body = content, Subject = "Test" };
            email.SendEmail();

            db.Emails.Add(email);
            db.SaveChanges();

            return email.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Update:
For a quick tutorial on how to use Razor views as email templates, check out the following post: http://www.whatibroke.com/?p=983

Unable to add ‘Scripts/services/OrderService.js’ to the Web site. An unknown WinINet error has occurred (code 12113)

Hey everyone,

I ran into the following error while trying to publish via FTP to GoDaddy using Visual Studio 2013:

Unable to add ‘Scripts/services/OrderService.js’ to the Web site. An unknown WinINet error has occurred (code 12113)

While I wasn’t able to work out an exact cause it seems to have been triggered by my alternative Azure/TFS publishing profile. While attempting to publish to GoDaddy the Microsft login popped up. I closed it thinking that it shouldn’t be required. Logging back in seems to have resolved the issue.

The configuration section ‘customErrors’ cannot be read because it is missing a section declaration – Azure

Hey everyone,

The configuration section ‘customErrors’ cannot be read because it is missing a section declaration

I started receiving this error after I added the following elements to my Web.config file:

The problem turned out to be that the custom errors entry actually belongs under system.web. All you actually need to add it the <customErrors mode=”Off”/> part – just make sure it’s under system.web.

Failed to register URL “http://10.X.X.X:11111″ for site “XXX” application “/”

Hey everyone,

I’ve just upgraded to Visual Studio 2013 and ran into the following while trying to run IIS express:

Failed to register URL “http://10.1.1.2:53034&#8221; for site “XXX” application “/”. Error description: Access is denied. (8×80070005).

The solution ended up being pretty obvious, I didn’t have permission. Run it with administrative privileges and the error goes away.

EF Generated Migrations Not Including New Model – Empty Up/Down

Hey everyone,

A quick issue I ran into today, my generated migrations weren’t detecting any of the models I’d added – only changes to existing models. Unfortunately the solution was so obvious that it didn’t even come up on Google.

I had forgotten to add the table to the DBContext file… Once this was done it all worked fine.

Working IPN Handler with Parallel Payments – PayPal Adaptive Payments

Hey everyone,

Just a dummy implementation of a Parallel Payment and an accompanying IPN Handler using the C#/.NET SDK. Feel free to use it however you like.

//Handles PayPal IPN
        public String IPN()
        {
            //Post back to either sandbox or live
            string strSandbox = "https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr";
            //string strLive = "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr";
            HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(strSandbox);

            ////Set values for the request back
            req.Method = "POST";
            req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
            byte[] param = Request.BinaryRead(Request.ContentLength);
            string strRequest = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(param);
            strRequest += "&cmd=_notify-validate";
            req.ContentLength = strRequest.Length;

            //Send the request to PayPal and get the response
            StreamWriter streamOut = new StreamWriter(req.GetRequestStream(), System.Text.Encoding.ASCII);
            streamOut.Write(strRequest);
            streamOut.Close();
            StreamReader streamIn = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());
            string strResponse = streamIn.ReadToEnd();
            streamIn.Close();

            if (strResponse == "VERIFIED")
            {
                //check the payment_status is Completed
                //check that txn_id has not been previously processed
                //check that receiver_email is your Primary PayPal email
                //check that payment_amount/payment_currency are correct
                //process payment
            }
            else if (strResponse == "INVALID")
            {
                //log for manual investigation
            }
            else
            {
                //log response/ipn data for manual investigation
            }


            return "";
        }

        //Pay for an order
        public void Pay(int OrderId)
        {
            RequestEnvelope envelopeRequest = new RequestEnvelope();
            envelopeRequest.errorLanguage = "en_US";
            PaySample paySample = new PaySample();
           
            List listReceiver = new List();
            // Amount to be credited to the receiver's account
            Receiver receiverA = new Receiver(Convert.ToDecimal("4.00"));

            // A receiver's email address
            receiverA.email = "test_buyer1@learnerlessons.com.au";
            listReceiver.Add(receiverA);

            // Amount to be credited to the receiver's account
            Receiver receiverB = new Receiver(Convert.ToDecimal("2.00"));

            // A receiver's email address
            receiverB.email = "test_buyer2@learnerlessons.com.au";
            listReceiver.Add(receiverB);

            ReceiverList receiverList = new ReceiverList(listReceiver);

            PayRequest requestPay = new PayRequest(envelopeRequest, "PAY", "http://localhost:53034/orders/cancel", "AUD", receiverList, "http://localhost:53034/orders/return");
            requestPay.reverseAllParallelPaymentsOnError = true;
            requestPay.ipnNotificationUrl = "http://123.123.123.123/Orders/IPN";

            //Send request to paypal, retrieve payKey
            PayResponse payResponse = paySample.PayAPIOperations(requestPay);

            Response.Redirect("https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ap-payment&paykey=" + payResponse.payKey);
        }

Configuring Custom Settings – PayPal C# SDK

Hey everyone,

I’ve been mucking around with the C# SDK for PayPal Adaptive Payments. Unfortunately the docs aren’t too great and the samples are a little confusing until you get your head around them.

One of the main issues I’ve had is working out how to configure payment request settings i.e. reverseAllparallelPaymentsOnError.

To do this, simple utilise the PayRequest class:

PayRequest requestPay = new PayRequest(envelopeRequest, "PAY", "http://localhost:53034/orders/cancel", "AUD", receiverList, "http://localhost:53034/orders/return");
requestPay.reverseAllParallelPaymentsOnError = true;