ASP.NET Development Simplified with Productivity Power Tools 2012

The Visual Studio IDE has always been a favorite for .NET developers and it provides a safe and seamless working environment for an ASP.NET development company to create state-of-the-art web applications. While the capabilities of Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 are many and powerful, there are still some features and tools that helps companies offering offshore software development services, achieve their goals faster. This is where Productivity Power Tools comes into the picture. It has been one of the most widely accepted and renowned extensions for Visual Studio 2010. Some of its features were even ported to the 2012 version. But this latest release of Productivity Power Tools 2012 brings the whole array of tools, such as Quick Find, Solution Explorer (nee Navigator), Quick Launch, and the new Add Reference dialog. This article is meant for everyone as we introduce you to the entire feature set of Productivity Power Tools 2012 that is sure to get your ASP.NET development into overdrive and help you achieve your development objectives faster.

Features back on popular demand:

• The Enhanced Scrollbar retains its spot and allows you to view edits, breakpoints, bookmarks, errors and warnings in the source map of your file.
• The much adored Fix Mixed Tabs feature is here too and warns & offers to fix mixed tabs when opening & closing files.
• The convenient Automatic Brace Completion feature that easily inserts a closing code brace in tandem with an opening brace.
• Move Line Up/Down Commands that allow easy scrolling of code via ALT+Up and ALT+Down keys
• Organize VB Imports and syntax highlighting via Colorized Parameter Help
• Column Guides, Align Assignments and Middle Click Scrolling
• Ctrl + Click Go To Definition that transforms code symbols into hyperlinks on the press of the CTRL key and takes you to the respective definitions on click
• Rich text HTML format saved to clipboard for copy/cut/paste functions
• Control over use of extensions via Tools Options

The new kids of the block:

• The Power Commands extension is integrated into this release and offers highly useful functions like Clear All Output Panes, Email a Snippet of Code and Edit Project Files.
• Color Printing from the editor is also possible.
• The Quick Tasks menu that aggregates the most popularly used features and allows you to access them by adding a “@” prefix.

This sums up the new features of Productivity Power Tools 2012. We have already started using it as a part of our Visual Studio 2012 IDE for developing cutting-edge ASP.NET web applications for clients across the globe. We are an ASP.NET development company offering cost-effective offshore software development services. You can hire ASP.NET developers from our pool of talented programmers to work on-site with you and help conceive your dream app.

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Augmented Client-side Storage with HTML5 in ASP.NET

If you are designing and developing a website using ASP.NET then this forms a pertinent question for you. How do you want to store application data on the client side? The optimal solution that any .NET development company would prefer is HTML5 Web Storage. Being a streamlined data storage mechanism, HTML5 stores data at the client’s end as key-value pairs.

At the server-end, data storage is never an issue with RDBMS solutions. Traditionally, dedicated .NET developers used to store data at the client’s end in the form of cookies. W3C provides 5MB per origin storage space for HTML5. Juxtapose this with the size for cookies (4MB), and the reason is evident why HTML5 Web Storage should be preferred. But, let’s not jump to conclusions as there always is a catch to every situation. Cookies are passed instantaneously between the client and server automatically, in sync with a website’s every request. Web Storage does not do this, and you need to establish a programmatic construct using methods like JQuery to call a Web Method or a WCF service. The data in the Web Storage cannot be cleared by setting an expiry, unlike Cookies. You again would need to adopt a programmatic approach for the same or use a browser-based UI dialog box for clearing the same.

You can implement Web Storage in two forms; session storage, which lasts as long as the current instance of the browser exists or local storage, where data persists across multiple sessions. These can be manipulated using the sessionStorage and localStorage attributes of the window object. Single transactions are where session storage is ideal as data ceases to persist as soon as the user shuts down the browser instance. In local storage, the data is trans-session persistent and therefore can be used for future access to the same website. Even closing the current browser instance does not remove the data. Below are some of the key-value pairs with almost identical properties and methods for session storage and local storage:

• setItem() – stores a key-value pair in the respective Web Storage object
• getItem() – retrieves value of a specified key from the respective Web Storage object
• removeItem() – removes a specified key-value pair from the Web Storage object under consideration
• clear() – removes all the key-value pairs from the Web Storage object
• key() – takes a 0 based index and returns key name at that index
• Length – returns the total number of key-value pairs present in the Web Storage object
• remainingSpace – returns the amount of storage space in bytes still available for storing data. This property is specific to IE. Other browsers may implement similar property.

You can now go ahead and implement one these methods for storing application data at the client’s end. At GoodCore, we are always on the hunt to redefine programming paradigms. Optimizing processes and developing new ways to reduce product development lifecycles is an inherent goal at GoodCore. Being an offshore software development company, we provide cost-effective offshore .NET development services that are world-class and are sure to help you conceive the web application of your dreams in reduced timeframes.

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