CompareValidator doesn't fire

I have an application where I am using a CompareValidator on a field that is acting as a CAPTCHA, therefore I am comparing the value that is entered.

When testing the page, I was clicking the submit button on the form, before entering any text, but when I did this, it was submitting the form! Why, when the value couldn't possibly be the same?

The reason for it is the depths of the AJAX js files:

function CompareValidatorEvaluateIsValid(val) {
    var value = ValidatorGetValue(val.controltovalidate);
    if (ValidatorTrim(value).length == 0)
        return true;
    var compareTo = "";
    if ((typeof(val.controltocompare) != "string") ||
        (typeof(document.getElementById(val.controltocompare)) == "undefined") ||
        (null == document.getElementById(val.controltocompare))) {
        if (typeof(val.valuetocompare) == "string") {
            compareTo = val.valuetocompare;
        }
    }
    else {
        compareTo = ValidatorGetValue(val.controltocompare);
    }
    var operator = "Equal";
    if (typeof(val.operator) == "string") {
        operator = val.operator;
    }
    return ValidatorCompare(value, compareTo, operator, val);
}

The following line is the culprit:

if (ValidatorTrim(value).length == 0)
        return true;

If the length of the information input into the box being validated is 0, i.e. nothing entered, then this validates as true. This means that if you compare something to nothing, that is valid.... stupid, but valid.

The solution to this is to add a RequiredFieldValidator as well, which then forces the length to be greater than 0, an thus makes it all work

Compiler Error Message: CS0115: 'ASP.pagename_aspx.GetTypeHashCode()': no suitable method found to override

I came accross this problem today when converting a set of application pages into master pages.

My initial problem was that I had set CodeFile attribute of the @Page directive, rather than the CodeBehind attribute.

The second problem was that my page was inheriting from the Masterpage, rather than from System.Web.Ui.Page.

When I fixed these it worked.

It essence, if you get this error, check out what, and where your page is inheriting from.

Outlook 2007 Email Headers

I keep forgetting where to find this one....

When you wish to see the header, right click on the message in your inbox and choose "Message Options". The window that pops up has the headers showing in it.

TinyMCE ListBox Plugin for Merge Tags

Well, today I finally managed to cobble together the following solution for a problem I had whereby I wanted a plugin for TinyMCE whereby I could select a value from a drop down / listbox, and have it inserted into TinyMCE.

So here's how I did it:

First define a javascript array BEFORE initialising the TinyMCE editor. This allows you to create this array server side if you want (by writing a response stream declaring it if necessary), or allows you to control it per page. E.g:

var arrUserTags = new Array('{{Name}}','{{Address}}','{{Company}}');

I created a new plugin in tiny_mce/plugins/usertags/editor_plugin.js as follows:

(function() {
tinymce.create('tinymce.plugins.usertags', {  
init : function(ed, url) {
},  
createControl: function(n, cm) {      
switch (n) {          
case 'usertags':              
var mlb = cm.createListBox('usertags', {                   
title : 'Insert details    ',                   
onselect : function(v) {                        
tinyMCE.activeEditor.selection.setContent(v);                   
}              
});
        
//The array arrUserTags, must be defined before the editor is added!!! Or if you prefer, just ignore the array idea, and just do multiple mlb.add() statements.                             
for(i=0;i

This you can then register as a plugin in tinymce.

CompareValidator doesn't compare numeric amounts correctly

Well at least that is what I thought today!

I had a compare validator set on two text boxes that were used to enter monetary amounts. The validator was to ensure that box B was greater than Box A.

In this scenario, it worked:

Box A = 100, Box B = 200 = Fine

But...

Box A = 500, Box B = 1000 = Invalid

Why? Because I hadn't set the TYPE attribute of the validator to CURRENCY

D'oh!

TinyMCE UpdatePanel Javascript errors

I have spent days on this one, and it took myself and a colleague both working on it to find a solution that actually worked!

Here's the scenario.... you want to use TinyMCE, and have it working in an UpdatePanel. It sounds simple enough.

What I did was add the TinyMCE editor script, setup my tinyMCE.init() method, and hey presto, I got my editors. I set my code behind for my save button, and it fired fine when pressed, however, the editor disappeared! So, I moved my init function into the code behind, and registered it with the scriptmanager.registerclientscript method. This was fine, and when svaing my content, the editor did not disappear anymore - however, when I clicked the save button for a second time, I got a javascript error on the editor trying to access it's content.

The specific part of the javascript from tiny_mce.js was erroring on "return this.bodyElementthis.getDoc().body"

Anyway, I searched through many examples of how to solve this, including remove the editors before performing the postback, and eventually found a downloadable example that worked:

http://codeodyssey.com/archive/2007/7/18/updatepanel-tinymce-demo-with-project-zip-file

However, when I tried to use this in my application, with TinyMCE version 3.2.3, it didn't work. I copied over the version from this download, and then it seemed to fix the problem - but I lost some of the TinyMCE functionality!

Eventually, my colleague stumbled upon this absoluetly brilliant .NET extender, that handles everything for you, and allows you customise each editor independantly:

http://weblogs.asp.net/cjdevos/archive/2008/06/19/ajax-extender-for-tinymce-continued.aspx

So, if your having problems with TinyMCE and updatepanels - download it and use it!

Math.Log in VBScript

Today I was working on an old Classic ASP project, and I was converting some JavaScript code to ASP.

Part of the code used the JavaScript Math.Pow function, e.g. Math.Pow(4,3), and I needed to do this in classic ASP.

I found that the ^ operator in VBScript does this, but it wasn't easy to transpose into my code, so I just added the following function to the page:

FUNCTION Pow(val, val2)
Pow = val ^ val2
END FUNCTION

Added called it as needed, e.g. Pow(4,3)