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I have 2 working sections of code and need to put them together

section 1 -

the user can visit a page, view & edit the contents of a database, which includes news articles, titles, related links etc, i've managed to get this working & the data is saved to the db

section 2 -

a javascript news scroller on the homepage of the site writes out a series of divs which are then rotated using javascript & CSS to make it look like they are scrolling, again this works fine. The news articles are drawn in from an array hard coded on the homepage

Problem - i want the user to be able to edit the news feed by editing the content of the DB, sort of like a homemade CMS system but only for 1 page.

How do i take a variable from the DB (i'm guessing using a SQLDataSource) and assign it to a variable which i can then write out to the javascript array & therefore into the news feed on the homepage.

I apologise if this is a simple question but i'm struggling with it, my C# & .net skills are quite limited any help would be very gratefully recieved

Thanks Ben

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3 Answers 3

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The simple scenario

When a user visits a page where they can edit news items and updates/adds new news items, the application should persist those changes to the database.

When a user visits the page with the news scroller after a user has edited/added new news items, they will see the updated items as the application will get the news items from the database when the page is requested.

A more complex scenario

When a user visits a page where they can edit news items and updates/adds new news items, the application should persist those changes to the database.

The page with the news scroller polls the server using AJAX to get news items. Any new news items that it retrieves (perhaps by passing in the request an id or datetime of the most recent news item) will then be displayed. The newer news items may replace older news items that are held in a JavaScript array of news items on the client.

How the data is retrieved from the database could be done in numerous ways:

  1. You could use a SqlDataSource control, but I'd only really recommend doing this if this is a small application because the control starts to mix data access logic into the presentation layer.

  2. You could use vanilla ADO.NET with a SqlConnection, SqlCommand and SqlDataReader to read the records out of the database.

  3. You could use LINQ to SQL to read the record out. This may save some time over number 2.

  4. You could use any number of other data access tools such as Dapper.NET, Massive, Simple.Data, Entity Framework, NHibernate, etc. Your mileage may vary on what is the most appropriate tool for the complexity/simplcity of the application.

Let me know if this answers your question and if not, I'll see if I can elaborate.

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hi thank you for responding so quickly, the simple scenario would be fine i have set up the editing page & am happy with it, i just cant seem to find a way to get the data from the .net code into the javascript code if that makes sense? - w3schools.com/ajax/ajax_database.asp i believe this is the sort of thing polynomial is referring to am i correct? @Polynomial
I think I understand where you may be stuck. You essentially need to "translate" your .NET types into something that you can work with using JavaScript, correct? If that's the case, take a look at the JavaScriptSerializer - msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/… You'd probably serialize the data in the code behind then assign the result to a JavaScript variable in the page.
Just keep in mind that JavaScriptSerializer was deprecated, then undeprecated later. It may not be reliable as a long term solution. Regardless, JSON is very useful.
Why would the deprecation/undeprecation make a difference?
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You'll want to write a page in ASP.NET that takes POST variables and uses them to manipulate the database. The frontend can then use Ajax to post the variables into that page.

Ajax tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/default.asp

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In the codebehind of the home page, you will create a property (like NewsFeedText) and set it in the page load event. Then you can read that property on the client side as

var mynewsfeed = '<%= Me.NewsFeedText %>';

You can parse the mynewsfeed variable to create the array.

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