Mark Brown's Blog : Internet Explorer

How to close window (self) without prompting in IE6 and IE7

mab — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:06:00 GMT

Scenario
Web application wants to pop-up a window as a certain size, chromeless, etc. However doesn't want to have the opening (parent) window show. Common usages are launching from shortcut or an application.

Solution
In the "parent" page that launches the popup. Put the following code to close your(self) in javascript:

var self2 = window.open("", "_self");
self2.focus();
self2.opener = self2;
self2.close();

How to autoresize parent frame height from child frame

mab — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:01:00 GMT

Scenario
A parent document contains a frame that loads a file which content is dynamic and you want the frame to not scroll and autosize the height of the frame.

Solution
function autoResizeParent() {

// if no parent don't attempt to change
if (parent != null) {

var frameList = parent.document.body.getElementsByTagName("iframe");

// is there any frames?

if (frameList != null) {

for (var i = 0; i < frameList.length; i++) {

var srcName = frameList[i].src;

srcName = srcName.substr(srcName.lastIndexOf("/"));

var srcParent = document.location.pathname.substr(document.location.pathname.lastIndexOf("/"));

alert("Parent=" + srcParent + "\nFrame="+ srcName);

// found myself

if (srcParent == srcName) {

// set parent frame height to my height

frameList[i].height = document.body.offsetHeight;

// force scrolling off

frameList[i].scrolling = "no";

}

}

}

}

}

How to recycle a IIS6 website in Windows Server 2003 SP1

mab — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Many clients I have worked with simply use the IISReset.exe command to recycle applications. Although this may have the desired affect sometimes, there are many alternatives that are better. By no means is this an exhaustive list but will give you some options when a specific website is causing problems (i.e. hung, OOM). Stopping a website doesn't reset memory or the worker process it just stops the website from processing the requests. Therefore, the website "start/stop" actions are not listed below.

Single Web Application "resets"

Recommended: Recycle the application pool of the specific website's application pool. With Windows Server 2003 SP1 the command line is iisapp.vbs: Reference: http://blogs.iis.net/chrisad/archive/2006/08/30/Recycling-Application-Pools-using-WMI-in-IIS-6.0.aspx. You can use a process id /p or an application id with /a.

Examples:
D:\WINDOWS>iisapp /p 596 /r
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved.
Application pool 'DefaultAppPool' recycled successfully.

D:\WINDOWS>iisapp /a DefaultAppPool /r
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved.
Application pool 'DefaultAppPool' recycled successfully.

Reseting ALL websites on a server (not recommended)

Start and stop specific services for web services only (do not do the start commands if you are not recycling)
NET STOP W3SVC
NET STOP HTTPFilter (if having problems with SSL)
NET START HTTPFilter (if having problems with SSL)
NET START W3SVC
Use IISReset /NOFORCE , this causes the system to not forceable terminate the internet services if timeout or error occurs. Note: this will reset all IIS services that are enabled: FTP, NNTP, WWW, IISAdmin, etc.
IISReset (without /NOFORCE) causes a forceable stop if doesn't respond within 60s (the stop default can be changed via command line). This may lead to IIS configuration loss (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286196). Note: this will reset all IIS services that are enabled: FTP, NNTP, WWW, IISAdmin, etc.
Reboot the server. Not recommended and may cause signficant data loss. Note: this attempts to shutdown or forcably shutdown all applications on the server not just IIS related.
Power cycle the server. Not recommended and may cause signficant data loss. Note: this is extremely dangerous and only to be used when all other options (even one's not listed above) have been tried.

Hope this helps ...

ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part vs Sharepoint 2007 Web Parts

mab — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:46:00 GMT

So what is the deal with ASP.NET web parts and SharePoint web parts?

Well, glad you asked. I am not an authoritative source but thought I would document a few links since an associate of mine was asking and I was curious.

Resources

Sharepoint Web Parts Overview
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms432401.aspx

Windows SharePoint Services Web Part Infrastructure
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms415560.aspx

Walkthrough: Creating a Basic SharePoint Web Part
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms452873.aspx

Walkthrough: Creating Connectable SharePoint Web Parts
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms469765.aspx

Creating Web Parts in Windows SharePoint Services
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms367238.aspx

Working with the Windows SharePoint Services WebPart Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms473203.aspx

Channel 9 Video: Building ASP.NET Web Parts for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=192071

15 Seconds: Building Web Parts for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://15seconds.com/issue/060824.htm

15 Seconds: Building an ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part for Deployment to WSS V3.0 and MOSS 2007 - Part 1
http://15seconds.com/issue/060914.htm

Scott Guthrie (MSFT): Writing Custom Web Parts for SharePoint 2007
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/09/02/Writing-Custom-Web-Parts-for-SharePoint-2007.aspx

Mark Kruger (SharePoint MVP): Great resource link site for almost everything Sharepoint
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mkruger/archive/2006/05/25/7570.aspx

If anyone has any great resources on comparisons between the two let me know I would be interested ...

Sending Excel 97/XP/2000/2003/2007 Output from ASP.NET 2.0

mab — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:59:00 GMT

I know there are several articles on the internet describing varous methods to send excel output from ASP.net. Additional, there are many great third party tools as well. I needed to do something simple and lightweight so I expanded on some examples. I needed to do some formating and embed and image. But first there is some setup to do.

Setup Web.config to enable XLS to be compiled and executed as ASP.NET code by the runtime

Under the <system.web> section:

Create Excel Output page

Add a web form name ExcelOut.aspx
Remove all html code, just leave the <@ Page ...> directive line
In code behind add the following code in the page load event (please note that html generated is incomplete and is only to show as a sample, please follow all html best practices in a production envrionment)

Response.Clear();
Response.Buffer = true;
Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel";
Response.Charset = "";
this.EnableViewState = false;
System.IO.StringWriter ExcelStringWriter = new System.IO.StringWriter();
System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter oHtmlTextWriter = new System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter(ExcelStringWriter);
ExcelStringWriter.Write("<table border=1><tr>");
ExcelStringWriter.Write("<td><b>blah</b></td>");
ExcelStringWriter.Write("<td width=\"100\"><img src=\"http://search.msdn.microsoft.com/search/masterpages/items/msdn.jpg\" /></td>");
ExcelStringWriter.Write("<td>1</td><td style=\"mso-number-format: _("$"* #,##0.00_);_("$"* \$#,##0.00\$;_("$"* "-"??_);_(@_)\">5000</td>");
ExcelStringWriter.Write("</tr></table>");
Response.Write(ExcelStringWriter.ToString());
Response.End();

Create a web form then rename to XLS extension

Create the page to call ExcelOut

Add a new web page called TestExcel.aspx
Add a hyperlink in the page like
<a href="Excelout.xls">Excel output</a>

Compile and run and you should something similar to ...

Even though the example below is an HTML table please note that the output is in excel and each item is in a excel cell. The "blah" is in cell A1 with font style of bold, "1" is in cell c1, "5000" is in cell d1 with a format on the cell as "$#,##0.00".

blah

$5,000.00

Summary

This is just an example how to export to Excel from ASP.NET using a simple html snippet that includes images and text formatting. Let me know what you think or any code improvements.

Problem (Bug) with IE7 Beta and VS2005 Build Style (CSS) Builder

mab — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 17:34:00 GMT

For those running Visual Studio 2005 (VS2005) along side Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) Beta you may have noticed that the VS2005 CSS editor pops up then disappears immediately. You can reproduce by right click on a style in a CSS file and choose "Build Style". As with any Beta release challenges and compatibilities will arise. The product teams are aware of the issue and are working on it for the final release as indicated here:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=257535&SiteID=1

As the information states you can workaround the issue by editing the registry (standard disclaimer for editing registry-backup machine, do with caution). There is a work around available for those willing to play with their registry:

Open Registry Editor (Start/Run/RegEdit)
Navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl
Create a key if none exists for FEATURE_CSS_DATA_RESPECTS_XSS_ZONE_SETTING_KB912120
Create a DWORD entry in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_CSS_DATA_RESPECTS_XSS_ZONE_SETTING_KB912120
Enter for name: devenv.exe
It should automatically default to a value of 0 (otherwise change it)
Shutdown all IE7 and VS2005 programs
Start VS2005 and it should now work

I hope this helps ...