Wilson WebPortal Forums

Create new portal from outside WWP

Tue, 22 May 2007 13:28:44 GMT

So, you are saying there is nothing I can call in the wilson wp from an external application that will allow me to create a new portal?
If not, could you give me a few pointers as to how I might go about doing this? Maybe just point me in the right direction...

Thanks!

Create new portal from outside WWP

Tue, 22 May 2007 00:34:12 GMT

There is no support for doing it outside of the portal itself, short of creating some db scripts I suppose. That's an interesting request though, something that I'll consider next time around.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Create new portal from outside WWP

Mon, 21 May 2007 21:50:24 GMT

How do I go about creating a new portal from an external asp.net application?

I tried this:

    protected void btnNewRegistration_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        WebPortal.Core.Config.Initialize("localhost/defwwp");

        WebPortal.Core.Portal myPortal = null;

        myPortal = WebPortal.Manager.DB.GetObject<WebPortal.Core.Portal>();

        myPortal.Name = this.TextBox1.Text.ToString();
        myPortal.Group = WebPortal.Core.Group.GetById(1);
        myPortal.Theme = WebPortal.Core.Theme.GetById(1);
        myPortal.Skin = WebPortal.Core.Skin.GetById(1);
        myPortal.Frame = WebPortal.Core.Frame.GetById(1);
        myPortal.Email = "me@something.com";
        myPortal.FavIcon = "myFavIcon";
        myPortal.Logo = "myLogo";
        myPortal.Description = "myDescr";
        myPortal.Keywords = "myKeyword";
        myPortal.Save();

        WebPortal.Core.Setup.BuildPortal(myPortal);
    }

But I keep getting an error in Page.cs:
        static Page() {
            string where = Manager.Helper.GetExpression("Page.PortalId", Portal.Current.Id); << HERE
            Cache.Register<Page>(where);
        }

Please advise ASAP. Thanks!

Create Portal Issue

Tue, 01 May 2007 16:52:45 GMT

Sorry for the double post, but I posted as anonymous last week and it never made it into the forum...

There seems to be an issue when creating a portal, saving and coming back to update the portal settings.

I was receving an error in PageBase > OnInit >

if (this.page.Id != Controller.Portal.HomePage.Id) {

this.AddParts(Controller.Portal.HomePage.Parts, true);

}

Controller.Portal.HomePage was null, which I don't believe should ever be the case. I checked the database > wp_portals and the following columns are null for my newly created portal: HomePageId, SearchPageId, ErrorPageId, PagePartId, PartPartId.

I am new to this software, so I don't know if all those columns should be null...anyways this is the repro:

1-Go to Host > Portals
2-Click on Add
3-Entered
   Portal Name: TestBZ
   Portal Email: test@test.com
   Description: Test
   Keywords: Test
4-Save (if I check database > wp_portals, all the columns noted above are NOT null)
5-Click on Edit on newly created portal (TestBZ)
6-Change description to: Test2
7-Save (if I check database > wp_portals, all the columns noted above ARE null)

Now if I try to access the portal (after setting up in IIS), I get an error in the line noted above.

Thx, BZ

Application Reset

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 00:18:30 GMT

There is a little hack in place that might do what you want. If you go to the "Portal" page, it will flush the cache, except on postbacks since that would mean you've already been there and are just making changes. I found it useful for debugging, and never did expose that better.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Application Reset

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 00:16:37 GMT

Hi Paul,

It would be great to have an option to reset the running application. Sometimes I find that I need to reset the app for some of my changes to take effect. I usually 'touch' the web.config to affect this.

Regards,

Sean

How do you delete a part from a page?

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:23:16 GMT

I would expect if you deleted a part all content would be deleted as well.

HelloWorld module in a seperate project.

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 01:56:18 GMT

I actually have my modules already split across several projects: Modules, Admin, and Extras. So simply make yours look like any one of these, as there isn't anything special about any of these. Or another possiblility if you don't need more is to simply create a user control and nothing more. Many of mine do have user controls so you can easily modify the look and feel, while the logic is in a project, but some are pure user controls and nothing else. Take a look at the various user modules: UserPrefs, UserPassword, UserLogin, and UserEmail.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

HelloWorld module in a seperate project.

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 01:49:53 GMT

Hi Paul

Any suggestions how to setup a HelloWorld Module in a seperate project not part of your

source project so that in the future i could continue to use your codebase without any modifications to mine.

Thanks.

Aliases

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 01:49:07 GMT

Hi Frans:

Ah, I believe you are correct. I always set things up the second way, probably mostly because I don't have a lot of control over it when using shared hosts.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Aliases

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 01:47:35 GMT

Paul,

I have the same problem. Can you comment on the following, what is the correct setup?

a. 2 different domains pointing to the same IIS website, configured these domains as hostheaders on this website

b. 2 separate websites in IIS, pointing to the same root folder containing the portal files. Each website contains the corresponing hostheaders.

I think option a gives the problems as mentioned below as the portal is only initialized during application startup. In other words; the alias (hostheader) is not checked each request to determine the matching portal. This could be added to the code obviously but asking you; will it break your current caching mechanism?

Thanks in advance,

Frans

Simple HelloWorld module.

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:06:58 GMT

Hi Paul
I am looking for steps to build a simple HelloWorldModule.
I tried these steps but it doesn't seem to be working.
1: Added a HelloWorldUserControl.ascx in the Module folder of WebRoot project.
2: Changed the inheritance of HelloWorldUserControl.ascx to ModuleBase from UserControl.
3: From Host->Moduls->Add Module, added the HelloWorldUserControl.ascx and set the path correctly.
4: Add a TestPage.
5: Add a NewPart and selected -> HelloWorld.
6. When the part gets displayed it appears like it shows us the EditModule and not the View of HelloWorldUserControl.ascx .
These fields are displayed on the module:
*********************
Group Id:
Group Name:
Super Role:
Auto Approve:
PwdMinLen:
...
...

Save and Cancel buttons.
*********************
Please let me know if i missed anything.
Thanks

Beginner questions.

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:37:14 GMT

1.   Yes. The use of the ORMapper means you can use almost any database. I'm currently using SQL 2000 on my webhost and SQL 2005 on my dev machine so either of these are trivial, while others would require creating the matching schema but once that's done they will work too.

2.   A module is reusable control, often a user control, that is registered in the portal and can thus be dynamically added to any page. A part on the other hand is simply one instance of a module on a specific page -- kind of like an object is an instance of a class. A webpart is a special type of control that ASP.NET gives you as a building block for its "portal" framework -- originally a SharePoint thing but not necessarily so anymore. Note that webparts are not used in my portal.

3.   The database will only set itself up the first time, so if you have it working in VS2005 then you'll need to use that first admin portal itself to configure additional portals.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Beginner questions.

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 02:24:12 GMT

1. Will WWPortal work with SQL server 2000.

2. What is the difference between PagePart and Module and WebPart.

3. I created a vir dir to WebRoot and when i browse to the page default.aspx from IIS i

get page not found message, but it works fine when i bring it up in VS2005 as a website.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

Aliases

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:03:04 GMT

Hi Magnus:

You certainly can set aliases to point to sub-domains, and even completely different domains -- that is something I use myself a lot. You need to make sure you have that domain or subdomain pointing to the portal's webroot folder, and you need to make sure it is configured for ASP.NET v2.0. I can't think of any other requirement or issue to be aware of, and I haven't seen this behavior myself so I'm at a loss to explain it.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Aliases

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:57:29 GMT

Hi.

Does the aliases have to point to a subfolder on the same domain? Becasue I'm trying to set it up with subdomains but can't get it to work.

Example:
mydomain.com            Main Portal
admin.mydomain.com  Admin Portal
port1.mydomain.com   Portal 1
port2.mydomain.com   Portal 2

All added on the same single IIS web site.

If I do an iisreset and then surf to portal 1 I will end up on portal 1 as it should. But if I after that type any other subdomain it will still end up on portal 1. It is cached somehow. To be able to reach the admin portal again, I have to iisreset and make sure that the first domain I visit to is admin.mydomain.com.

Regards,
Magnus

Blog module

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 07:59:36 GMT

Hi Paul,

I'd love a blog module.

I'm just too lazy to implement it myself. :-)

Regards,

Sean

Add table with multiple primary key

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 08:55:26 GMT

Hello Paul,

I am modifying your webportal to include localization. I want the localizable properties of each entity in a separate table, like this:

Now how does this tblLanguageLocales fit into the mapper classes? I don't know how i can use a class with multiple primary key into your webportal design, and your cache mechanism.

I want to be able to ask the page class to give me the name of the page. In the page class the pagelocale is fetched out of the cache and, based on the language in the users profile, the correct name is returned. Could you be so kind to give me a small sample how to achieve this?

Thanks very much,

Frans

Initial setup - Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:45:01 GMT

I do need to do a better job with some error messages, like the database wasn't setup, in my next build. Maybe I can even come up with a few others and/or more details. Some things are going to always be hard to diagnose at runtime though, but I'll try to get it better.

So far though the problems that get resolved seem to be of two types. First, it has to be setup correctly in IIS, which means marked as an IIS app and pointing to the right folder. If this is not setup correctly then there's nothing I can do, since the portal code will never even be configured to try to run correctly. The other main problem scenario is the database connection string, and that is something that I should be able to provide at least a little better message.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Initial setup - Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:34:48 GMT

Hi Paul,

More information since the previous post in this thread...

If I execute iisreset before each time I run the portal from within Visual Studio, the real error shows up. Apparently I have a problem with my database setup, but I only ever saw that error one time, and thought I had fixed it, because during the next run through the error was different. This lead me to believe something else was wrong. Hence my confusion.

What I think is happening is that during the first run through the portal code runs Framework.Controller Initialize() the first time, hits the database error and raises it. All is as expected. The developer then attempts to fix the error. But the next time the portal runs, something is cached (or otherwise causing the code to think it's already been initialized) and it is trying to execute a code path that assumes there is data and goes and tries to load a theme and display the home page. This is where the confusion occurs, because it's acting as though there's data in the database, when there isn't any. At least that's the theory, anyway.

Sorry for the rambing post, but I hope this helps someone else out who might be having the same problem. Now to figure out why SQL Express is refusing to create a valid user login account... which is a really simple thing, theoretically, and I've done it many times before in 2000 and msde, so not a clue as to why I'm botching it up all of a sudden. Oh well.

Cheers,

Steve

Initial setup - Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:34:45 GMT

I am running the same configuration and am getting the same error as reported by Dean.

As I look at the call stack where the error is being thrown, the entry point is OnPreInit in PageBase.cs. I am baffled since I can't dig anywhere to see where the glitch may be. There's nothing else earlier in the call chain (as far as I can tell) for me to go look at. Also, I saw mentioned elsewhere that on first hit an entry is written to wp_Config table. I checked and there are no records there.

I must be an idiot, because it is not obvious to me how the portal code can be where it is looking for a theme to load without a single record in any of the tables. I ran the setup db script and it created everything fine, but loaded no data, and that's ok because there aren't any sql insert statements to do so. So the portal somehow knows it's not set up and "does something". I just can't get to where that "something" is in the code so I can't tell where it's failing. Or else I'd set up the records myself.

Can anyone shed a little light on how the portal goes about setting itself up? I've been at this for hours, and this framework is so very very promising and cool, but trying to get this to even run makes me feel like an idiot. (And I've been coding for over twelve years.)

Cache.Register bug...

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:20:14 GMT

Yes, you are correct -- I'll fix that in the next update.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Cache.Register bug...

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:19:29 GMT

Dear Paul,

While going over the web portal source code, i noticed the following lines:

public static void Register<T>(string where) {

lock (where) {

Cache.where[typeof(T)] = where;

}

The lock statement looks suspecious, i guess you meant lock(Cache.where) !!

Thanks

Shadi Mari

Initial setup - web configuration

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 18:26:29 GMT

Hi Dean:

Are you running it inside of VS 2005? If so, did you run it the first time directly from your browser so that it setup everything correctly? And is that database and url the exact same that you're using in VS 2005? I don't have VS 2005 Standard, but I do know that I've heard that running web apps inside VS 2005 with Sql Express can reset your database everytime in some cases. In other words, I'm just guessing as there's obviously a setup problem, and I suspect its something to do with VS 2005, Sql Express, and/or your IIS Setup -- all the things that are really tough to debug without being there to see it for myself, so I'm not real sure what to tell you.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Initial setup -- web root config

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 18:26:12 GMT

Initial setup - Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 18:25:48 GMT

Initial setup -- web root config

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 04:39:05 GMT

Hi Paul,

As a followup, I am running VS2005 Standard. When I try to set IIS as the webserver (and create an IIS application on WebRoot) and then run the solution, I get an error in the controller class, at

internal static void Initialize() {
    HttpContext context = HttpContext.Current;
    string appPath = context.Request.ApplicationPath.TrimEnd('/');
    string aliasPath = context.Request.Url.Host + appPath;
    initialized = Core.Config.Initialize(aliasPath);

An exception of type 'System.TypeInitializationException' occurred in WilsonWebPortalFramework.DLL but was not handled in user code

Additional information: The type initializer for 'Wilson.WebPortal.Core.Config' threw an exception.

I guess the bottom line is, I am missing something basic on how to set this up using VS2005 Standard, SqlSqerver 2005 Express, and IIS. For info, this is my connection string:

with the database in the WebRoot\App_Data folder.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

--Thanks, Dean

Initial setup - web configuration

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 04:09:37 GMT

Hi Paul,

One more question...

I am using VS2005 and SqlExpress. I followed the steps in your readme file for setting things up and have partial success. while running the website in VS2005, I added a Basic: HtmlText part to the initial page and when I try to edit it I get:

Failed to map the path '/aspnet_client/FreeTextBox/Languages/en-US.xml'.

Stack Trace:

[InvalidOperationException: Failed to map the path '/aspnet_client/FreeTextBox/Languages/en-US.xml'.]
   System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.MapPathActual(VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean permitNull) +483
   System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.MapPathInternal(VirtualPath virtualPath) +48
   System.Web.VirtualPath.MapPathInternal() +25
...

Did I miss a step?

On a related note, when you use VS2005, the WebRoot is a website "project". Have you tried converting it to an ASP.Net WEb Application (ala Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects ?

--Thanks, Dean

Initial setup - Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 04:02:12 GMT

Hi Paul,

I am using VS2005 and SqlExpress. I followed the steps in your readme file for setting things up and have partial success. When I run the website in VS2005, it starts fine and I can login in with AdminUser, etc. However, when I try to browse Default.aspx from IIS I get the following:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

private Core.Theme theme {
Line 47:    get { return this.Profile.Theme ?? this.page.Portal.Theme; }
Line 48:   }
Line 49:
Source File: C:\src_ext\wilson\WilsonWebPortal\v1.0.0.2\src\Framework\Bases\PageBase.cs    Line: 47

Stack Trace:

[NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]
   Wilson.WebPortal.Framework.PageBase.get_theme() in C:\src_ext\wilson\WilsonWebPortal\v1.0.0.2\src\Framework\Bases\PageBase.cs:47
   Wilson.WebPortal.Framework.PageBase.OnPreInit(EventArgs e) in C:\src_ext\wilson\WilsonWebPortal\v1.0.0.2\src\Framework\Bases\PageBase.cs:58
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +521

I hope this is not covered elsewhere. I treid to read through the forum.

--Thanks, Dean

Password

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 21:16:56 GMT

Hi Sean:

You cannot retrieve a password, you can only reset it -- it is hashed, not encrypted, which is the standard password management best practice. How do you reset it? You can do it in the admin interface in the web app, but I also like to work directly in the database, so I created a shortcut. All you need to do is set the PwdHash field to the desired password and also set the PwdSalt field to "*" -- the next time that particular user is touched it will be automatically hashed for you, so please encourage the user affected to login, as well as change their password.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Password

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:34:07 GMT

Hi Paul,

Just wondering if there's a way to access the password field of in the DB. I can access the database itself, so I just need to unencrypt the password. What algorithm did you use to write the pwd to the database (either Access or SQL Server).

Thanks,

Sean

WebPortal Setup Issue

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:49:45 GMT

Paul,

Thanks. I have had bits of issues with these guys @ ASPnix and I agree a switch is in order. I just signed up with WebHosting4Life and will give them a try. I chatted with their help people first to verify what I needed to do was doable and they agreed.

I used your referrer ID, so you should get a credit or something.

-Rob

WebPortal Setup Issue

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:50:26 GMT

Hi Rob:

Sorry about that. There are quite a few libraries that require reflection, not to mention a lot of reasons you might want to use it yourself, so that's very short-sighted. I sometimes hear of people with problems with WebHost4Life's support, just as I do with every other host, but they do seem to always be willing to work with people, not to mention that most things are easy to do on your own with their control panel, so maybe you should consider a move. Its always a pain to move things already setup, so I understand if that's not doable, but I orginally moved to WebHost4Life when me previous host dragged their feet getting ASP.NET up and running -- I couldn't afford to wait indefinitely, no matter how hard it was to move.

Good luck, Paul Wilson

WebPortal Setup Issue

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:45:11 GMT

Paul,

Thank you for the reply. My host is ASPnix and they won't give me that permission. I just asked their support group and got an all out "no". No real explanation.

-Rob

WebPortal Setup Issue

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:21:42 GMT

Hi Rob:

You need the reflection permission due to the ORMapper. Some hosts automatically enable this, while some do not. Its not technically part of medium trust, but many that start with medium trust do add this permission since its a common requirement and since its not much of a real security risk. Microsoft was at one time even talking about adding a hosting trust that would have included this by default, but for some reason that plan never got implemented. So talk to your host -- I assume they have to at least allow it on your machine, even if you have to also do something to enable it for your app.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

WebPortal Setup Issue

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 14:48:56 GMT

Paul,

I have setup the WebPortal based on your Readme.txt document distributed with the zip file. I am using Aspnix for web hosting. I uploaded the WebRoot directory after configuring and setting up the DB on my host. I can connect fine to the db with the built tables from MS SQL Management Studio.

When I browse my site at www.stillriversoftware.com, I get the following:

Security Exception

Description: The application attempted to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy. To grant this application the required permission please contact your system administrator or change the application's trust level in the configuration file.

Exception Details: System.Security.SecurityException: Request failed.

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the 
current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the 
exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[SecurityException: Request failed.]
   System.Reflection.Assembly.GetType(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) +0
   System.Web.Compilation.CompilationUtil.GetTypeFromAssemblies(AssemblyCollection assembliesCollection, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase) +176
   System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetType(String typeName, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) +318
   System.Web.Configuration.ConfigUtil.GetType(String typeName, String propertyName, ConfigurationElement configElement,

Any ideas what might be causing this?

Thank you,
Rob Bazinet

Where does WebPortal Framework fit?

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:33:59 GMT

Hi Shadi:

That's a tricky one. Many people will tell you that you can use Sharepoint or DNN for any web app, and if you believe that then you can probably make the same claim for my WebPortal. On the other hand, if you don't believe that, then you probably shouldn't for mine either. As a web app developer myself, I personally feel that my WebPortal will work effectively for many cases, but you have to weigh each individual case of course. The WebPortal allows you to get right to work on just create very simple ASP.NET v2.0 modules, while still enjoying the great features that ASP.NET v2.0 brings to the table, but of course it also does add the overhead of a database for everything, although hopefully you'll find the caching very effective. There certainly are some obvious limitations also though, due to the simplistic approach that I like -- there isn't built-in support for other membership and/or role providers, nor the personalization features of web-parts, and my search engine is crude at best at the moment. In other words, I'm certainly not trying to build yet another generic CMS system, but I truly am trying to build a web app framework that is developer friendly -- and in many cases its already good enough, while in others its a work in progress (localization for instance).

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Where does WebPortal Framework fit?

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:23:49 GMT

Dear Paul,

I'm still not sure where the web portal framework can fit? is it only to be used for web portals much like Sharepoint and DotNetNuke or it can be used as a foundation for every web application?

If its a foundation for all web apps then does this mean i should match use cases with modules on the portal?

Thanks

Shadi Mari

Existing non-portal pages

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:22:36 GMT

Hi Sean:

You should be able to mark the "oldASPXstuff" folder as a separate IIS application (or have your hoster do that if they don't provide you that capability) and that should do it. And while you may not be able to move your existing sites, I'd highly recommend getting a host that does allow you more functionality (like WebHost4Life).

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Existing non-portal pages

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:00:59 GMT

Hi Paul,

I have an existing webapplication (ASP.NET) that I would like to leave on my site. However, the URL for them is http://mysite.com/oldASPXstuff/default.aspx. This gets processed by the WebPortal, as I have it as my root application. (My hosters dont provide a means to specify http://www.mysite.com to point to http://mysite.com/APortal).

Is there anything I can do in the configuration to bypass processing for this site, or what else can I do?

Thanks,

Sean

Permissions

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 13:07:37 GMT

There's really not much to edit on the page-level, and when you do edit those page-level things (page name, title, icon, description, keywords, menu page/order, etc.) you aren't actually using that page itself. Instead when you edit page-level settings, you are actually using the Part for editting Pages, which is on the Pages Page. So you can change both who can view the Pages Page and Page Part on it, as well as who has the Rights to Edit or Delete Pages on the Page Part. That does mean that you can't enable some people to edit some page-level settings and some to edit other page-level settings -- it is an all or nothing thing. But that typically makes the most sense (although I'm sure there are exceptions) because editting page-level settings is really best described as site management, while editting the Parts on a Page is more traditional content management.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Permissions

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 04:48:17 GMT

Thanks Paul.

Just for one further clarification. Are you saying that pages cannot be set to be read/write separately?

For example, I can't at this time, give a person(s) permission to edit (add parts) to a page, but that page only?

Thanks,

John

Permissions

Sat, 17 Jun 2006 13:45:07 GMT

Hi John:

Each Page has an "Edit Page" link at the top-right (at least in the included masters) that allows you to specify both if its publicly viewable by everyone and if not then you can assign specific roles (or none to make it all logged in users). You can also get to "Edit Page" from the Portal > Pages menu, so you don't actually have to visit the page in question if you do not want to do so. Next, each Part on your Page has an "Edit" link at the top-right of its frame (again in the included frames) that allows you to specify the same public and/or role options for visibility. Finally, on the Parts that have configured Actions, you will also see the ability to specify Rights for each Action to be public and/or role-based. Note that "read" permissions are the default "view" settings, while the other permissions are Part specific Actions that typically include things like "edit" and "delete", but there may be other Actions also.

Now as to Groups and Roles (and Users), the best way to think of it is that if you are the only one using your installation than you will probably just create one Group and never think about Groups again -- you'll simply be managing Roles and Users in that one Group. On the other hand, if your installation is going to have Portals used by other "companies" or "communities" (not just for yours) than you should think of each of those "companies" or "communities" being its own Group that has its own separate Roles and Users. The rationale behind this is that I might be a User in one "company" but not in another "company", or maybe I am a User in both "companies" but my Roles vary between those "companies". I believe most other web portals force you to have different users and roles for each portal, but that isn't always what you want since you may very well have multiple portals for the same "company" that should have the exact same Users and Roles -- although even then you might have some roles allowed to view and do more things in one portal and less in another.

Finally, you're right on about the "Inactive or Suppressed or NotInRole" text when you login as an admin -- those particular Parts aren't applicable but there must be a way for you to edit their settings and thus I show them to admins anyhow.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Permissions

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:33:12 GMT

Hi Paul,

How do you assign edit permissions, and read permissions to a web part and/or page separately?

Also, so far the groups, and roles don't seem well separated in my mind, perhaps you could explain the significance, and how to properly assign read/edit permissions separately?

Lastly, I noticed as the admin user, after login, I get a message in the login part at the bottom which says it's inactive, or NotIsInRole or something like that. I'm guessing since you are already logged in, the part isn't applicable.

Thanks,

John

Multiple 'other' database.

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:27:45 GMT

Hi Lloyd,

I created a simple table in the master database, wherein I put a PortalID and database connection string.

Based on the PortalId, I then accessed the ORMapper using the connection string specified. I didn't actually write a supporting module though. It's very easy to do so, though.

As there was only a small number of tables, and the relationships are fairly simple (no N->N), I copied the code, and wrote modules for each table that use the List and EditView controls.

If I get a chance, I'm going to write a generic List and EditView with parameters pointing to ObjectType.

Hope this helps.

Stick with it, though, because it's a great product, and so easy to use. Although, I really wish Paul had brought in the UIMapper. I think he's thinking about it, or at least he's thinking about a generic table-focused List and Edit View control.

Regards,

Sean.

Problems with setup

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:02:06 GMT

Hi Lloyd:

Is "WebRoot" setup as an application in IIS? If not then it needs to be configured that way. I think that could also be due to the connection string being wrong -- did it give a stack-trace? One way to tell if it got past the connection string correctly is that it should add an entry to the wp_Config table on the first hit. The more information you can provide about what exactly you have done, the full error details, and anything in the database, the easier it is to help you.

Thanks, Paul Wilson

Problems with setup

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:53:40 GMT

I'm probably just being thick but I can't get the portal up and running. I'm getting the following error when I to navigate to the site:

The type initializer for 'Wilson.WebPortal.Core.Config' threw an exception."} System.Exception {System.TypeInitializationException}

from this line of code:

initialized = Core.Config.Initialize(aliasPath);

the alias path is localhost/WebRoot

Thanks in advance,

Lloyd

Multiple 'other' database.

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 08:56:28 GMT

Sean, which approach did you settle on. I'd like to port an existing application into WebPortal but a seperate database for each client is a requirement of ours as well. I'd be interested in hearing which you decided and what you learned from doing it.

Lloyd

Login URL

Wed, 10 May 2006 14:21:29 GMT

Paul,

I've found the setting in the Portal menu.

Thanks,

Sean

Login URL

Wed, 10 May 2006 14:11:51 GMT

Hi Paul,

Just wondering if there's a quick way to change the login link on the main page? Something like this portal, in fact. The default link is to Default.aspx. I want to move it to it's own page, or another page (like Forums).

Regards,

Sean