MattChepeleff.com » Code http://www.mattchepeleff.com Web Development, Design, Photography & More Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:21:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Using Wordpress/MySql as a CMS for a .NET Site http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/using-wordpressmysql-as-a-cms-for-a-net-site/ http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/using-wordpressmysql-as-a-cms-for-a-net-site/#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:16:18 +0000 Matt Chepeleff http://www.mattchepeleff.com/?p=567

I’ve got a couple of projects I’m working on that are written in C#/.NET and each have a lot of static content. “Static” meaning about us, product description, and FAQ-ish content.  Stupidly, I’ve got these pages as hard-coded HTML for one site and database driven through a primitive “CMS” for the other (I use quotes because I merely put this database-driven content into a TinyMCE enabled field on a back-end site and let users have at formatting).

Obviously the hard-coded solution isn’t the way to go because every change requires a new build onto the server – which is overkill to say the least.  The quick-and-dirty WYSIWYG/database solution is only marginally better in my opinion (no saved versions and all the text is free form, so associating other fields like data posted, modified, or author requires incremental work).

While thinking up a better way to handle this content I realized both sites also have a Wordpress powered blog.  The business users are already used to Wordpress and it’s a great platform…plus it’s a more powerful CMS out of the box.  That got me thinking: Why not setup an additional Wordpress site at static.domain.com (or something) and let ......]]> I’ve got a couple of projects I’m working on that are written in C#/.NET and each have a lot of static content. “Static” meaning about us, product description, and FAQ-ish content.  Stupidly, I’ve got these pages as hard-coded HTML for one site and database driven through a primitive “CMS” for the other (I use quotes because I merely put this database-driven content into a TinyMCE enabled field on a back-end site and let users have at formatting).

Obviously the hard-coded solution isn’t the way to go because every change requires a new build onto the server – which is overkill to say the least.  The quick-and-dirty WYSIWYG/database solution is only marginally better in my opinion (no saved versions and all the text is free form, so associating other fields like data posted, modified, or author requires incremental work).

While thinking up a better way to handle this content I realized both sites also have a Wordpress powered blog.  The business users are already used to Wordpress and it’s a great platform…plus it’s a more powerful CMS out of the box.  That got me thinking: Why not setup an additional Wordpress site at static.domain.com (or something) and let the business users handle the static content in this familiar environment.  This would enable the business users, make my life easier, and make the world a better place.

This approach does, in addition to a few other things, require the existing .NET sites to be able to talk to Wordpress’ database and grab the right content.  More specifically, here’s what needs to be done conceptually:

  1. Setup the new Wordpress environment for storage of the new “static” content
  2. Install the MySQL Connector/Net so .NET can talk to MySQL
  3. Write code in C# to pull content out of the MySQL database

Now the only other thing we need to figure out is how we’re going to grab an individual record from the wp_posts table.  We could query by ID, Title, Author, etc…  As I need to call content from the existing .NET sites, I want the code to be able to grab something that isn’t going to change – like IDs.  Now, you would be correct thinking ahead and wondering how Wordpress stores multiple versions of the same page or post.   That won’t pose issues, because the post_parent field always references the original post:

MySQL wp_posts Query

But I don’t want to use the ID because Wordpress users can’t modify it if something changes.  Fortunately, Wordpress allows a user to quickly add custom fields – so we’ll go this route because it gives the business users more control and they’ll like this (feel more important).

Before I get to the code, let’s quickly recap.  From .NET I will call some code that will lookup a post in the wp_posts table using a custom field value.  In Wordpress, all that a user needs to do is add this custom field – the code will look up the most recent revision and handle the rest.

Here’s a class I wrote in C#:

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class WordPressPostInfo
{
    #region private variables
    string _title, _content, _name, _excerpt, _status, _password, _type, _mimetype, _posternicename, _posterdisplayname, _posteremail, _websiteloc;
    DateTime _posted, _postedgmt, _modified, _modifiedgmt;
    int _posterId;
    #endregion
 
    #region public attributes
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Title
    /// </summary>
    public string Title
    {
        get { return _title; }
        set { _title = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Content
    /// </summary>
    public string Content
    {
        get { return _content; }
        set { _content = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Name
    /// </summary>
    public string Name
    {
        get { return _name; }
        set { _name = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Excerpt
    /// </summary>
    public string Excerpt
    {
        get { return _excerpt; }
        set { _excerpt = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Status
    /// </summary>
    public string Status
    {
        get { return _status; }
        set { _status = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Password
    /// </summary>
    public string Password
    {
        get { return _password; }
        set { _password = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Date/Time Originally Posted
    /// </summary>
    public DateTime Posted
    {
        get { return _posted; }
        set { _posted = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Date/Time Originally Posted (GMT)
    /// </summary>
    public DateTime PostedGMT
    {
        get { return _postedgmt; }
        set { _postedgmt = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Date/Time Modified
    /// </summary>
    public DateTime Modified
    {
        get { return _modified; }
        set { _modified = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Date/Time Modified (GMT)
    /// </summary>
    public DateTime ModifiedGMT
    {
        get { return _modifiedgmt; }
        set { _modifiedgmt = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post MIME Type
    /// </summary>
    public string MimeType
    {
        get { return _mimetype; }
        set { _mimetype = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Publish Status
    /// </summary>
    public bool IsPublished
    {
        get
        {
            if (Status == "publish" || Status == "inherit")
                return true;
            else
                return false;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Post Type
    /// </summary>
    public PostType Type
    {
        get
        {
            if (_type == "post")
                return PostType.Post;
            else if (_type == "page")
                return PostType.Page;
            else if (_type == "revision")
                return PostType.Revision;
            else
                return PostType.Unknown;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Poster's Wordpress "Nice Name"
    /// </summary>
    public string PosterNiceName
    {
        get { return _posternicename; }
        set { _posternicename = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Poster's Wordpress "Display Name"
    /// </summary>
    public string PosterDisplayName
    {
        get { return _posterdisplayname; }
        set { _posterdisplayname = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Poster's Wordpress Email
    /// </summary>
    public string PosterEmail
    {
        get { return _posteremail; }
        set { _posteremail = value; }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// The Website Location to display this post (set in Wordpress as custom field with name "websiteDisplayLocation")
    /// </summary>
    public string WebsiteLocation
    {
        get { return _websiteloc; }
        set { _websiteloc = value; }
    }
    #endregion
 
    #region constructors
    /// <summary>
    /// default constructor
    /// </summary>
    public WordPressPostInfo() { }
 
    /// <summary>
    /// construct by website location custom field in Wordpress
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="WebsiteLocation"></param>
    public WordPressPostInfo(string WebsiteLocation)
    {
        GetSinglePost("wp_postmeta.meta_value", WebsiteLocation);
    }
 
    /// <summary>
    /// construct by post title
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="PostTitle"></param>
    /// <param name="byTitle"></param>
    public WordPressPostInfo(string PostTitle, bool byTitle)
    {
        GetSinglePost("post_title", PostTitle);
    }
 
    /// <summary>
    /// private construct by MySqlDataReader
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="reader"></param>
    private WordPressPostInfo(MySqlDataReader reader)
    {
        FillWordPressObj(reader);
    }
    #endregion
 
    #region methods
    /// <summary>
    /// Get a single post
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="title"></param>
    protected void GetSinglePost(string byField, string byValue)
    {
        string strProvider = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["mysqlConnectionString"].ToString();
        MySqlConnection mySql = new MySqlConnection(strProvider);
        mySql.Open();
 
        string query = string.Format("select wp_posts.*, wp_postmeta.meta_value as websiteLoc, wp_users.display_name, wp_users.user_nicename, wp_users.user_email from wp_posts left join wp_postmeta ON wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id AND wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'websiteDisplayLocation' inner join wp_users on wp_posts.post_author = wp_users.ID where {0} = '{1}' AND post_status = 'publish' ORDER BY ID ASC LIMIT 1", byField, byValue);
        MySqlCommand mysqlCmd = new MySqlCommand(query, mySql);
        MySqlDataReader reader = mysqlCmd.ExecuteReader();
 
        while (reader.Read())
        {
            FillWordPressObj(reader);
        }
        reader.Close();
        reader.Dispose();
        mySql.Close();
        mySql.Dispose();
    }
 
    /// <summary>
    /// Get all the published posts and pages
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="title"></param>
    public List<WordPressPostInfo> GetAllPosts()
    {
        string strProvider = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["mysqlConnectionString"].ToString();
        MySqlConnection mySql = new MySqlConnection(strProvider);
        mySql.Open();
 
        string query = "select wp_posts.*, wp_postmeta.meta_value as websiteLoc, wp_users.display_name, wp_users.user_nicename, wp_users.user_email from wp_posts left join wp_postmeta ON wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id AND wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'websiteDisplayLocation' inner join wp_users on wp_posts.post_author = wp_users.ID where post_status = 'publish'";
        MySqlCommand mysqlCmd = new MySqlCommand(query, mySql);
        MySqlDataReader reader = mysqlCmd.ExecuteReader();
 
        List<WordPressPostInfo> posts = new List<WordPressPostInfo>();
        while (reader.Read())
        {
            posts.Add(new WordPressPostInfo(reader));
        }
 
        reader.Close();
        mySql.Close();
        reader.Dispose();
        mySql.Dispose();
 
        return posts;
    }
 
    /// <summary>
    /// Fill the main WordpressPostInfo object with the attributes in the reader
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="reader"></param>
    protected void FillWordPressObj(MySqlDataReader reader)
    {
        this.Title = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("post_title"));
        this.Content = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("post_content"));
        this.Name = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("post_name"));
        this.Excerpt = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("post_excerpt"));
        this.Status = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("post_status"));
        this.Password = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("post_password"));
        this.Posted = reader.GetDateTime(reader.GetOrdinal("post_date"));
        this.PostedGMT = reader.GetDateTime(reader.GetOrdinal("post_date_gmt"));
        this.Modified = reader.GetDateTime(reader.GetOrdinal("post_modified"));
        this.ModifiedGMT = reader.GetDateTime(reader.GetOrdinal("post_modified_gmt"));
        this._type = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("post_type"));
        this.MimeType = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("post_mime_type"));
        this._posterId = reader.GetInt32(reader.GetOrdinal("post_author"));
        this.WebsiteLocation = reader.IsDBNull(reader.GetOrdinal("websiteLoc")) ? "" : reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("websiteLoc"));
        this.PosterNiceName = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("user_nicename"));
        this.PosterDisplayName = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("display_name"));
        this.PosterEmail = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("user_email"));
    }
    #endregion
 
    #region enums
    public enum PostType
    {
        Post = 1,
        Page = 2,
        Revision = 3,
        Unknown = 4
    }
    #endregion
}

After you copy over this class it will only take a line of code to get a post for display on your .aspx:

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WordPressPostInfo post = new WordPressPostInfo("about_us");

Or if you needed to iterate through all of the posts you could use:

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WordPressPostInfo wppi = new WordPressPostInfo();
List<WordPressPostInfo> posts = wppi.GetAllPosts();
foreach (WordPressPostInfo _post in posts)
{
     //do something with each post here
}

Each WordPressPostInfo object is going to contain all the fields you might want to display in the UI, so it should be easy from here.  While we do have to hardcode the call to the post on the .aspx – the source of the content can be changes and updated easily from Wordpress now!

A few notes to get this class working in your project:

  • Be sure to add a reference to MySql.Data to your project first, then add:
    using System.Configuration;
    using MySql.Data.MySqlClient;
    using MySql.Data.Types;
  • Add the assembly to your web.config under compilation > assemblies:
    <add assembly=”MySql.Data, Version=5.2.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=C5687FC88969C44D”/>
  • Add the connection string App Setting your web.config too:
    <add key=”mysqlConnectionString” value=”Data Source=localhost;Database=your_databaseName;User ID=your_userId;Password=your_password;”/>
  • I’m using a custom field in Wordpress called websiteDisplayLocation so be sure you use this field name or change the code
  • I’m only returning published status records – change the SQL as needed if this doesn’t work for you…
  • The Type property can be used to differentiate posts and pages.  I think I’ll have the end users create posts, but you could use either.  Wordpress stores posts and pages in the same wp_posts table.

Other useful reference for this project:

]]> http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/using-wordpressmysql-as-a-cms-for-a-net-site/feed/ 0 Easy Windows Batch File Backups (with MySQL, MsSQL, and email notifications included) http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/easy-windows-batch-file-backups-with-mysql-mssql-and-email-notifications-included/ http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/easy-windows-batch-file-backups-with-mysql-mssql-and-email-notifications-included/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:13:57 +0000 Matt Chepeleff http://www.mattchepeleff.com/?p=534

Here’s a post for fellow geeks.  Today I wanted to beef the backups for sites I serve and at the same time keep my brand server clean from software if I could.  I use Mozy Pro on the server but wanted periodic snapshots of sites at different intervals as well.  Only issue is I host sites that use MySQL and MsSQL databases – so this script accommodates both.  I wrote the following batch file which backs up website source files & databases to a .Rar file.  Then it sends me an email notification not only that a backup has occurred…but also with the details of all other backup files available.

I scheduled a .bat file with this script in it for each site I host and it drops everything into a single file for me per the schedule frequency.  I’m even free to email myself or clients their entire application source.

Prerequsites for this script to work are Winrar (not the free version, but a purchased version as I don’t think the free versions allow command line interfaces through rar.exe) and SendEmail (free).  I’ve separated the code a bit so you should be able to customize the top portion with ......]]> Here’s a post for fellow geeks.  Today I wanted to beef the backups for sites I serve and at the same time keep my brand server clean from software if I could.  I use Mozy Pro on the server but wanted periodic snapshots of sites at different intervals as well.  Only issue is I host sites that use MySQL and MsSQL databases – so this script accommodates both.  I wrote the following batch file which backs up website source files & databases to a .Rar file.  Then it sends me an email notification not only that a backup has occurred…but also with the details of all other backup files available.

I scheduled a .bat file with this script in it for each site I host and it drops everything into a single file for me per the schedule frequency.  I’m even free to email myself or clients their entire application source.

Prerequsites for this script to work are Winrar (not the free version, but a purchased version as I don’t think the free versions allow command line interfaces through rar.exe) and SendEmail (free).  I’ve separated the code a bit so you should be able to customize the top portion with your paths, etc.

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@ECHO off
 
REM *** CONFIGURE HERE (Leave mysql or mssql blank to skip database backup) ***
 
SET rootdir=\Inetpub\yourdomain.com
SET siteName=YourDomain.com
SET backupFolder=WWW
 
SET mysql=database_name
SET mssql=database_name
 
SET mysqlServer=localhost
SET mysqlPass=password
SET mssqlServerInstance=localhost\instanceName
 
SET WinRarexeLocation=C:\progra~1\WinRAR\rar
SET sendMailexeLocation=C:\folder_name\sendEmail.exe
 
SET emailFromAddress="auto_backups@yourdomain.com"
SET emailToAddress="steve@yourdomain.com"
SET smtpServer=smtp.yourdomain.com:25
 
REM *** Careful editing below this ********************************************
 
cd\
cd%rootdir%
 
REM *** Backup MySQL and/or MsSQL databases if db names specified ***
if defined mysql mysqldump -h %mysqlServer% -u root -p %mysql% &gt; db_backup.sql --password=%mysqlPass%
if defined mssql sqlcmd -S "%mssqlServerInstance%" -Q "BACKUP DATABASE %mssql% TO DISK = 'C:%rootdir%\%mssql%_db.bak';"
 
REM *** Save contents of specified directory to .rar archive ***
%WinRarexeLocation% a -agMM_DD_YYYY_HHMMSS BAK .rar %backupFolderr% db_backup.sql %mssql%_db.bak
 
del db_backup.sql
del %mssql%_db.bak
 
set myDir1=C:%rootdir%\*.rar
set fileinfo=
 
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir /b /a-d %myDir1% 2^&gt;NUL') do call :process %%a %%~zna
%sendMailexeLocation% -f %emailFromAddress% -t %emailToAddress -u "%siteName% Backed Up!" -s %smtpServer% -m "All source and/or database files for %siteName% have been backed up.\n\nBackup files available are:\n\nNAME                                   FILE SIZE\n-------------------------------------------------------------\n%fileinfo%\n\nEnjoy!"
 
:process
if not "%fileinfo%"=="" set fileinfo=%fileinfo%\n
set fileinfo=%fileinfo%%~1   %~2

I put all website source code into a WWW for each site – so that’s why I added a backupFolder variable to the script.  You can list as many other files or folders (separated by a space) or use *.* to include all files in the specified folder.

Feel free to customize and use as needed.

]]> http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/easy-windows-batch-file-backups-with-mysql-mssql-and-email-notifications-included/feed/ 0 New Site, mat.tc API and Wordpress Plugin http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/new-site-mat-tc-api-and-wordpress-plugin/ http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/new-site-mat-tc-api-and-wordpress-plugin/#comments Sun, 10 Jan 2010 06:54:47 +0000 Matt Chepeleff http://www.mattchepeleff.com/?p=518

Unless you’re reading this via RSS, you’ve already seen the new site I’ve rolled out. I really like it and hope you do as well. I did more than just redesign the way it looks though. It’s more than a pretty face.

I spent some time trying to clean up the information on the site too.  Specifically, I shortened the about page and really over hauled the portfolio page.  The portfolio is way better than it was:

New & Old Portfolio Pages

I think the new page is a lot cleaner and because there’s SO much less text, it should be easier to read and understand.

I also thought I’d play with some APIs and get into Wordpress a but while I built the new site.  I certainly brushed up my PHP and also learned a bit about Wordpress Plugins.  I wrote a plugin like Twitter Tools from Alex King – except mine uses my own http://mat.tc url shortener.  Obviously to do this I wrote a simple shorten API modeled after bit.ly’s ......]]> Unless you’re reading this via RSS, you’ve already seen the new site I’ve rolled out. I really like it and hope you do as well. I did more than just redesign the way it looks though. It’s more than a pretty face.

I spent some time trying to clean up the information on the site too.  Specifically, I shortened the about page and really over hauled the portfolio page.  The portfolio is way better than it was:

New & Old Portfolio Pages

I think the new page is a lot cleaner and because there’s SO much less text, it should be easier to read and understand.

I also thought I’d play with some APIs and get into Wordpress a but while I built the new site.  I certainly brushed up my PHP and also learned a bit about Wordpress Plugins.  I wrote a plugin like Twitter Tools from Alex King – except mine uses my own http://mat.tc url shortener.  Obviously to do this I wrote a simple shorten API modeled after bit.ly’s API.  It works wonderfully.  I can tweet from the site when logged in.  Automatic new post tweets also use mat.tc now which saves me the extra steps.

Twitter Tools doesn’t use OAuth though, so I had to rewrite a bit of the code so Twitter would recognize my calls and show the correct “From: ” line for tweets.  But that wasn’t too bad.

To round out the new site, I created a new logo too.  The old logo (in the image above) was just a simple play on my initials.  While exploring new ideas I came back to this ‘letters in my name’ idea.  So the little dude is made up of letters in my name (the m, c, and 2 l’s).  I added the tie because I thought it clarified it was a person – plus the business tie-in worked (sorry).  Font is Insignia.

Anyway, I’m really glad the content on the site is updated.  The new design, logo and mat.tc/Twitter integration is also nice.  I threw in a little flash on the login page for fun too: check it out.

Enjoy!

]]> http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2010/01/new-site-mat-tc-api-and-wordpress-plugin/feed/ 0 Sites.Local – for developers with too many local sites http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2009/12/siteslocal-for-developers-with-too-many-local-sites/ http://www.mattchepeleff.com/index.php/2009/12/siteslocal-for-developers-with-too-many-local-sites/#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:28:32 +0000 Matt Chepeleff http://www.mattchepeleff.com/?p=303

As an ASP/C# developer it’s key I work locally and save time wasted uploading files after every change to a page.  Then, when I’ve got a bunch of changes to share with a client and I want to update a staging/production environment, I can do it all at once.  Well, I resumed working on a project this afternoon that I haven’t worked on for a couple days – and I just couldn’t recall the local site address!

My laptop runs Vista Business and I use Internet Information Services (IIS) to run local apps.  To map the various apps and keep everything running on port 80 I take advantage of the Windows Hosts file to create custom urls for local apps.  For example, I can create an entry for clientname.localdev which enables me to setup and view a site at http://clientname.localdev/.  You can learn more about Hosts files here if they’re new to you.

Back to this morning: I couldn’t recall if I setup localdev.project, project.localdev, project.local, or local.project.  Only way to check is to open up the Hosts file and see what I had originally created.  That’s when I thought: let’s write a quick page to read all the entries in my ......]]> As an ASP/C# developer it’s key I work locally and save time wasted uploading files after every change to a page.  Then, when I’ve got a bunch of changes to share with a client and I want to update a staging/production environment, I can do it all at once.  Well, I resumed working on a project this afternoon that I haven’t worked on for a couple days – and I just couldn’t recall the local site address!

My laptop runs Vista Business and I use Internet Information Services (IIS) to run local apps.  To map the various apps and keep everything running on port 80 I take advantage of the Windows Hosts file to create custom urls for local apps.  For example, I can create an entry for clientname.localdev which enables me to setup and view a site at http://clientname.localdev/.  You can learn more about Hosts files here if they’re new to you.

Back to this morning: I couldn’t recall if I setup localdev.project, project.localdev, project.local, or local.project.  Only way to check is to open up the Hosts file and see what I had originally created.  That’s when I thought: let’s write a quick page to read all the entries in my Hosts file.  So I did, and I setup sites.local as my own, local directory of entries read directly from my Hosts file.  Check it out:

I figured I’d create some categories to group the multiple entries I’ve got in my Hosts file – and add a quick flag for showing a category collapsed by default (more on this later).  Here’s a modified (sample) Hosts file:

First, let’s look at a few changes to the Hosts file itself to make all this work:

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# Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host
 
127.0.0.1       localhost	#ExcludeFromSites.Local
::1             localhost	#ExcludeFromSites.Local
 
#Sites.Local.Category: New Projects Category#
127.0.0.1       project1.local
127.0.0.1       project2.dev
127.0.0.1       anotherclient.devel
127.0.0.1       project3.local
 
#Sites.Local.Category: Other Category Here#
127.0.0.1       project4.local
127.0.0.1       project5.dev
127.0.0.1       project6.local
 
#Sites.Local.Category: Archived/Past Por {start:collapsed}#
127.0.0.1       project7.local
127.0.0.1       project8.dev
127.0.0.1       client23.devel
127.0.0.1       project9.local
127.0.0.1       project10.local
127.0.0.1       project11.dev
127.0.0.1       clientname.devel
127.0.0.1       project12.local

This obviously is not my Hosts file – I created a sample file for demo purposes.  But either way, there are a couple things to note here – most of which will make sense as you look at the upcoming .aspx and code behind:

  • Adding “#ExcludeFromSites.Local” to the end of the line will (you guessed) prevent the line’s display on our page
  • You can group entries by adding “#Sites.Local.Category: categoryname# to a line above that group, where categoryname is some text you’d like to refer to this category by
  • You can “{start:collapsed}” to a group name to display this group collapsed initially (each group can be collapsed/expanded by clicking the group name

Now onto the code – I made comments throughout the code behind to make things easy to follow.  The code could certainly be simplified, but for the sake of clarity I expanded some of it.

First, the .aspx page:

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<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Inherits="siteslocal_default" %>
 
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
      "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
    <title>Local Site Addresses</title>
    <style type="text/css">
        * {
            font-family:Arial;
            font-size:13px;
        }
        body {
            background-color:#dfd;
        }
        div#centercontent {
            width: 800px;
            height: 500px;
            text-align: center;
            position: absolute;
            left: 50%;
            top: 50%;
            margin-left: -400px;
            margin-top: -250px;
        }
        div#header {
            text-align:left;
            font-size:23px;
            font-weight:bold;
            height:30px;
        }
        div#content {
            border: 1px solid #000;
            padding: 30px;
            text-align:left;
            height:360px;
            background-color:#fff;
            overflow-y:scroll;
        }
        div#footer {
            text-align:left;
            font-size:12px;
        }
        div.category {
            margin-bottom:15px;
            margin-left:10px;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div id="centercontent">
        <div id="header">Local Site Addresses</div>
        <div id="content">
            <asp:Literal id="litHosts" runat="server"></asp:Literal>
        </div>
        <div id="footer">The contents of this page are being read directly
             from the hosts file in C:WindowsSystem32driversetc</div>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

And for the meat of the page, here’s the code behind written in c#:

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using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.IO;
 
public partial class siteslocal_default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        StreamReader reader = File.OpenText(@"C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts");
        string line = string.Empty;
        while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
        {
            if (!line.StartsWith("# ") &amp;&amp;
                !line.StartsWith(" ") &amp;&amp;
                line != "#" &amp;&amp;
                line != "" &amp;&amp;
                !line.EndsWith("#ExcludeFromSites.Local"))
            {
                bool show_collapsed = false;
                string showhidecode = string.Empty;
                if (line.StartsWith("#"))
                {
                    /******* Append the HTML for the start of a new category *******/
                    if (litHosts.Text != "")
                        litHosts.Text += ""; //only append if we're not on the first category
 
                    if (line.Contains("{start:collapsed}"))
                        show_collapsed = true;
 
                    string catText = line;
                    catText = catText.Replace(" ", "").Replace("t", "");     //remove spaces and tabs
                    catText = catText.Replace("{start:collapsed}", "");       //remove from display
                    catText = catText.Replace("Sites.Local.Category:", "");   //remove category prefix
                    catText = catText.Replace("#", "");                       //remove any stray #'s
 
                    //prep the javascript onclick code and div id
                    string id = catText.ToLower();
                    string js = string.Format("document.getElementById('{0}').style.display",id);
                    showhidecode = _
                       @"onclick=""if({0}=='block'){{0}='none';}else{{0}='block';}""".Replace("{0}", js);
 
                    //append the &lt;div&gt; for this category's name
                    litHosts.Text += string.Format(@"&lt;div style=""cursor:pointer;"" {0}&gt; _
                    &lt;b&gt;{1}&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;", showhidecode, catText);
                    //append the &lt;div&gt; opening tag for this category
                    litHosts.Text += string.Format(@"&lt;div id=""{0}"" class=""category"" _
                         style=""display:{1};""&gt;", id, show_collapsed ? "none" : "block");
                }
                else
                {
                    /******* Append the HTML for each item in the current category *******/
                    //first let's isolate the host name (assumes we don't need to display the IPs)
                    //so...let's the find the index of the first space or tab
                    string url = string.Empty;
                    line = line.Trim();
                    int spacer_location = 0;
                    spacer_location = line.IndexOf(' ');
                    if (spacer_location == -1)
                        spacer_location = line.IndexOf("t");
 
                    //display from the spacer to the end
                    url = line.Substring(spacer_location, line.Length - spacer_location);
                    url = url.Replace(" ", "").Replace("t", ""); //remove any spaces or tabs
 
                    //write out this line
                    litHosts.Text += string.Format(@"&lt;a href=""http://{0}/""&gt;{0}&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;", url);
                }
            }
        }
        litHosts.Text += ""; //close out the last div
        reader.Dispose();
    }
}

The only other things to note are:

  • I setup this page to run at http://sites.local and site this as my home page in Chrome – in IIS I changed the anonymous user to my own username (to ensure the code has permission to access the file)
  • Be sure to not to start an entry in your Hosts file with a Tab – the code allows preceeding spaced, but would need to be changed to allow preceeding Tabs

That’s it, hope you find this useful and a bit of a timesaver too.  Only took about 30 minutes to pull together, and I think you ought to be able to set it up in less time than that.

Happy coding!

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