Code On Time: Security

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Security

Tuesday, June 11, 2013Print Subscribe

Code On Time web apps using ASP.NET Membership automatically come configured with a password recovery form. This form can be opened by clicking on the Forgot your password? link on the dropdown login form.

When the user enters their User Name and Password Answer correctly, a new password will be sent to the email on file.

There are situations in which it may be necessary to allow users to access this form from a different location within the web app. In addition, if Custom Membership is used, the Forgot your password? link is not present. Let’s place the password recovery form in a custom user control and add this control to the home page.

Start the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer, right-click on Home / container2 node, and press New Control.

Next to the User Control lookup, click on the New User Control icon.

Assign a name to the user control:

Property	Value
Name	PasswordRecoveryForm

Press OK to save the user control. Press OK again to instantiate the user control on the Home page.

On the toolbar, press Browse to generate the user control. When complete, right-click on Home / container2 / control3 – PasswordRecoveryForm node and press Edit in Visual Studio.

The file will open in Visual Studio. Replace the existing code after the <%@ Control %> element with the following:

<asp:PasswordRecovery runat="server" />

Press OK to save the file. Switch back to the browser. Notice that the Password Recovery form is placed after the Instructions text box on the Home page.

Note that you must configure SMTP settings in order for the password recovery email to be sent by the application.

Labels: Application Builder, ASP.NET Membership, Security, Web Application Generator

Tuesday, June 4, 2013Print Subscribe

Custom Login Form

Code On Time web apps automatically include a dropdown login box pictured below when membership is enabled. As an alternative, a dedicated login page may be created. Learn more about the dropdown login box and dedicated login page.

Sometimes it may be necessary to place the login control on another page. This can be easily done by adding the <asp:Login /> control to any .aspx page.

Let’s place a login control on the home page. Start the web app generator, click on the project name, and press Develop to open the project in Visual Studio. In the Solution Explorer, double-click on ~\Pages\Home.aspx.

Notice that there are two <asp:Content> elements in the page. Append the highlighted line to the end of the second element.

<%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Main.Master" AutoEventWireup="true" 
    CodeFile="Home.aspx.cs" Inherits="Pages_Home" Title="^HomeTitle^Start^HomeTitle^" %>

<%@ Register Src="../Controls/TableOfContents.ascx" TagName="TableOfContents" TagPrefix="uc" %>
<%@ Register Src="../Controls/Welcome.ascx" TagName="Welcome" TagPrefix="uc" %>
<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="PageHeaderContentPlaceHolder" runat="Server">
    ^HomeTitle^Start^HomeTitle^
</asp:Content>
<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="PageContentPlaceHolder" runat="Server">
    <div factory:flow="NewRow" xmlns:factory="urn:codeontime:app-factory">
        <uc:TableOfContents ID="control1" runat="server"></uc:TableOfContents>
    </div>
    <div factory:flow="NewColumn" xmlns:factory="urn:codeontime:app-factory">
        <uc:Welcome ID="control2" runat="server"></uc:Welcome>
    </div>
    <asp:Login runat="server" />
</asp:Content>

Save the file, and press F5 to open the web site in a browser window. The standard login control will be present at the bottom of the page.

Labels: Application Builder, Security, Web Application Generator

Friday, January 4, 2013Print Subscribe

Displaying Current User Name as a Virtual Field

Suppose that you need to display the name of the current user. Let’s implement a virtual field that will display the current user name on the Customers form.

Start the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer, switch to the Controllers tab. Right-click on Customers / Fields node, and press New Field.

Use the following values:

Property	Value
Name	CurrentUserName
Type	String
Length	40
Allow null values.	true
The value of this field is computed at run-time by SQL expression.	true
SQL Formula	@BusinessRules_UserName
Label	Current User
Values of this field cannot be edited.	true

Press OK to save.

Let’s add this field to the edit form. Drop Customers / Fields / CurrentUserName (String(40)), read-only) node onto Customers / Views / editForm1 node. This will instantiate a CurrentUserName data field.

On the toolbar, press Browse. Navigate to the Customers page and select a record. The Current User data field will display the user name at the bottom of the form.

Log out, and log in as user / user123%. The current user will change to reflect the current user account.

Labels: Application Builder, Security, User Interface, Web Application Generator