Monday, January 11, 2010

“Hello World” with FubuMVC (without the training wheels)

My previous post was a FubuMVC super quick-start which explained how to utilize some very helpful code that has been added into the Fubu source to allow you to get up and running fast. While this should suit most initial situations, there probably will be a point where you need to add your own conventions. I will walk you through creating your own bootstrapping code which will also explain how the “training wheels” from the previous post work. I am going to borrow heavily from Chad Myers’ explanation’s which he posted on the FubuMVC Google Group, because I could not have said it better.

  1. (Starting from the previous posts step #11) Add a “Global.asax” file and delete all the generated methods except “Application_Start”. In “Application_Start” add the following:

       1: public class Global : System.Web.HttpApplication {
       2:     protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) {
       3:         var routeCollection = RouteTable.Routes;
       4:         FubuStructureMapBootstrapper.Bootstrap(routeCollection);
       5:     }
       6: }

  2. Create a FubuStructureMapBootstrapper.cs class that implements the IBootstrapper interface from StructureMap and then implement it’s members. This class manages the starting of Fubu and StructureMap together.

       1: public class FubuStructureMapBootstrapper : IBootstrapper {
       2:     private readonly RouteCollection _routes;
       3:  
       4:     private FubuStructureMapBootstrapper(RouteCollection routes) {
       5:         _routes = routes;
       6:     }
       7:  
       8:     public void BootstrapStructureMap() {
       9:         UrlContext.Reset();
      10:  
      11:         ObjectFactory.Initialize(x => { });
      12:  
      13:         BootstrapFubu(ObjectFactory.Container, _routes);
      14:     }
      15:  
      16:     public static void BootstrapFubu(IContainer container, RouteCollection routes) {
      17:         var bootstrapper = new StructureMapBootstrapper(container, new HelloWorldFubuRegistry());
      18:         bootstrapper.Bootstrap(routes);
      19:     }
      20:  
      21:     public static void Bootstrap(RouteCollection routes) {
      22:         new FubuStructureMapBootstrapper(routes).BootstrapStructureMap();
      23:     }
      24: }
    
    

  3. Create the HelloWorldFubuRegistry class that is passed into the StructureMapBootstrapper constructor along with the container. This is where all the actual Fubu conventions are located.

       1: public class HelloWorldFubuRegistry : FubuRegistry {
       2:     public HelloWorldFubuRegistry() {
       3:         IncludeDiagnostics(true);
       4:  
       5:         Applies.ToThisAssembly();
       6:  
       7:         Actions
       8:             .IncludeTypesNamed(x => x.EndsWith("Controller"));
       9:  
      10:         Routes
      11:             .IgnoreControllerNamespaceEntirely();
      12:  
      13:         Views.TryToAttach(x => {
      14:                               x.by_ViewModel_and_Namespace_and_MethodName();
      15:                               x.by_ViewModel_and_Namespace();
      16:                               x.by_ViewModel();
      17:                           });
      18:     }
      19: }
    

  4. IncludeDiagnostics(true) – Enable the diagnostics to be accessible through the /_fubu and /?fubudebug=true querystring options
  5. Applies.ToThisAssembly() – Tells Fubu to perform the following registration steps by scanning this assembly
  6. Actions.IncludeTypesNamex(x => x.EndsWith(“Controller”)) – Tells Fubu how to identify which classes containing action methods (i.e. HomeController)
  7. Routes.IgnoreControllerNamespareEntirely()  -- By default, Fubu will create a route for each action like /namespace/controllerbasename/action. Normally you wouldn't want /fubumvc/helloworld/controllers/home/home/home, you'd just want /home/home or /home/index or whatever. "IgnoreControllerNamespaceEntirely" does that. There are numerous variations of how to arrive at the route name here. Otherwise, you can specify your own conventions and manage the process.
  8. Views.TryToAttach --  This is a fall-through for matching actions-that-should-render-views (as opposed to actions that should render JSON) to their corresponding views.  It goes as follows:

      1. Try to match a view that is strongly typed (i.e. IFubuView where TModel is the return/output type of the Action), *AND* is in the same Namespace as the Controller/Action class *AND* is named the same as the Action/Method name (i.e. Home() -> Home.aspx)

      2. Try to match on the model *AND* the Namespace

      3. If all else fails, try to find a view anywhere in this assembly that matches the model type (Meaning that you don’t need to have the controllers and views in the same folder)

  9. Just in case you missed it, perform the same web.config tweaking like in the previous post.
I added this to my personal Google Code repo folder here. I anticipate that this, or something like it, will probably be moved to the Fubu code or wiki in the near future.

-Tim Tyrrell

Friday, January 8, 2010

“Hello World” with FubuMVC (Super Quick Start)

I started at Dovetail Software near the end of last year and the guys were gearing up to strip out the “proto-fubu” framework from their current project and rewrite the existing FubuMVC code; which is now complete. This week Brandon and I messed around and created a sample application to get more familiar with the framework. These are the steps that we used to get a quick sample up and running (made *much* easier by Chad and Josh last night).

  1. Get FubuMVC source from the “reboot” branch using something like TortoiseSVN at http://fubumvc.googlecode.com/svn/branches/reboot/ (soon to be Git). A sample application very similar to what is listed below is in the src/FubuMVC.HelloWorld folder
  2. Get Ruby to build it by navigating to the base FubuMVC folder and run a “rake” command (I am using “Ruby-186-27”, but any should work) or just open the solution and compile it.
  3. Create an ASP.NET Web Application project. Create a “lib” folder on the file system next to the newly created project
  4. Grab all the files (not just the three DLL's below) from the %yourFubufolder%\build folder if you raked, or %yourFubufolder%\src\FubuMVC.Container.StructureMap\bin\Debug folder if you built it through Visual Studio, copy them to a “lib” folder mentioned above, and then add three references to your project
    1. StructureMap.dll
    2. FubuMVC.Core.dll
    3. FubuMVC.StructureMap.dll
  5. Also add a reference to “System.Web.Routing” if you want to make the squiggle’s in your web.config go away
  6. Delete the “Default.aspx” file and the App_Data folder
  7. Create a Controllers Folder and then add a Home folder underneath it
  8. Add a Home.aspx Web Form page into the Home folder, have it inherit from the FubuPage<TViewModel> class instead of the Page class (FubuPage inherits from Page) and create an output view model to plug into that spot
       1: using FubuMVC.Core.View;
       2:  
       3: namespace FubuMVC.HelloWorld.Controllers.Home
       4: {
       5:     public class Home : FubuPage<HomeViewModel>
       6:     {
       7:     }
       8: }

  9. Add a HomeContoller.cs class to the Home folder and add a method that returns the previously created output view model, HomeViewModel and accepts a new input model
       1: namespace FubuMVC.HelloWorld.Controllers.Home
       2: {
       3:     public class HomeController
       4:     {
       5:         public HomeViewModel Home(HomeInputModel model)
       6:         {
       7:             return new HomeViewModel {Text = "Hello, world."};
       8:         }
       9:     }
      10:  
      11:     public class HomeViewModel
      12:     {
      13:         public string Text { get; set; }
      14:     }
      15:  
      16:     public class HomeInputModel
      17:     {
      18:     }
      19: }

  10. Get the text out of the returned Model and display it on the view (I yanked out the server tags, although that is not necessary)

  11.    1: <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Home.aspx.cs" Inherits="FubuMVC.HelloWorld.Controllers.Home.Home" %>
       2:  
       3: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
       4:  
       5: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
       6: <head>
       7:     <title></title>
       8: </head>
       9: <body>
      10:     <div>
      11:         <%= Model.Text %>
      12:     </div>
      13: </body>
      14: </html>



  12. Add a Global.asax file to the project, but instead of inheriting from HttpApplication, inherit from FubuStructureMapApplication:

       1: using FubuMVC.StructureMap.Bootstrap;
       2:  
       3: namespace FubuMVC.HelloWorld
       4: {
       5:     public class Global : FubuStructureMapApplication
       6:     {
       7:     }
       8: }

  13. If you want to turn on the diagnostics from Jeremy’s article, switch the web.config debug="true"and the diagnostics will be enabled. Otherwise you can set it yourself below.

  14.    1: using FubuMVC.StructureMap.Bootstrap;
       2:  
       3: namespace FubuMVC.HelloWorld
       4: {
       5:     public class Global : FubuStructureMapApplication
       6:     {
       7:         public Global()
       8:         {
       9:             EnableDiagnostics = true;
      10:         }
      11:     }
      12: }

  15. Lastly, we took out the machete on the web.config file. Although, we did add some references to System.Web.Routing inside of it.
       1: <?xml version="1.0"?>
       2: <configuration>
       3:   <configSections/>
       4:   <appSettings/>
       5:   <connectionStrings/>
       6:   <system.web>
       7:     <compilation debug="false">
       8:       <assemblies>
       9:         <add assembly="System.Core, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>
      10:         <add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
      11:       </assemblies>
      12:     </compilation>
      13:     <authentication mode="None" />
      14:     <pages>
      15:       <controls/>
      16:     </pages>
      17:     <httpHandlers/>
      18:     <httpModules>
      19:       <add name="UrlRoutingModule" type="System.Web.Routing.UrlRoutingModule, System.Web.Routing, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
      20:     </httpModules>
      21:   </system.web>
      22:   <system.codedom>
      23:     <compilers>
      24:       <compiler language="c#;cs;csharp" extension=".cs" warningLevel="4"
      25:                 type="Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089">
      26:         <providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5"/>
      27:         <providerOption name="WarnAsError" value="false"/>
      28:       </compiler>
      29:     </compilers>
      30:   </system.codedom>
      31:   <system.webServer>
      32:     <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false"/>
      33:     <modules>
      34:       <remove name="UrlRoutingModule" />
      35:       <add name="UrlRoutingModule" type="System.Web.Routing.UrlRoutingModule, System.Web.Routing, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
      36:     </modules>
      37:     <handlers>
      38:       <add name="UrlRoutingHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="*" path="UrlRouting.axd" type="System.Web.HttpForbiddenHandler, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />
      39:     </handlers>
      40:   </system.webServer>
      41: </configuration>

  16. Add the project path to new application in IIS (or Cassini) and hit the URL: http://localhost/%yourapp%/home/home

image


Screenshot of final folder structure and references:

image

Code location: An application very similar to this is located in the reboot branch of FubuMVC, called FubuMVC.HelloWorld in the src folder here

Let me know if I missed anything or if this does not work. A lot will be done in the next couple of weeks to get Fubu rocking, and I plan on blogging as much as possible along the way. As you probably heard, we are starting up a posse: http://wiki.fubumvc.com/TODO

-Tim Tyrrell

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

2010 Goal List

I figure that I better document my 2010 goal’s before it gets too far into the new year. Per my previous 2009 goals, I actually did a pretty good job achieving them. I wrote about my accomplishment’s below but then I deleted it, because even I was bored! :)

  1. I am getting back into the typing. I feel like Kevin Costner in “Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves” when someone comes behind me at work; I start typing like an idiot and shoot my arrow in the bushes.
  2. I used to play guitar; I even took lessons in high school and a classical guitar class in college. This weekend I changed the strings on my acoustic for the first time in 10 years. I plan to get back into playing and my fingertips are already hurting.
  3. Most of my work experience is with .NET. I really enjoyed working with Unix when I was at a previous job and want to learn a different MVC framework and a dynamic language, so Rails is where I am setting my sights. I have an Ubuntu Linux VM setup with VirtualBox and have been working through some tutorials. I really want to attend the Austin On Rails meetings and hope that I go.
  4. I also will continue my .NET journey and have some great people to guide me now that I work at Dovetail Software. My current goals are to be competent and comfortable at unit testing/TDD and to understand fubuMVC inside-out.
  5. I will continue to attempt fitting a game of tennis in every week, it appears that I actually work with a couple of tennis players, so I may have lucked out.

That’s it. Done.