Basic usage:

$("table").budapest();

Advanced usage:

$("table").budapest({
  headers: {
    0: { sortable: true},
    1: { sortable: true},
    2: { sortable: true}
  },
  sortIndex: 2,
  sortDirection: "asc",
  onSort: function(index, val1, val2, direction){
    //provide your own sorting algorithm for each column!
    //must return either -1, 0, or 1
  },
  onSorted: function(index, direction){
  //this event is fired after each sort!
  }
});

Check out the full documentation.

Public Class ICalController
        Inherits Controller
 
        Private _sessionRepo As ISessionRepository
        Private _locationRepo As ILocationRepository
 
        Public Sub New(ByVal sessionRepo As ISessionRepository, _
                             ByVal locationRepo As ILocationRepository)
            _sessionRepo = sessionRepo
            _locationRepo = locationRepo
        End Sub
 
        Public Function SessionEvent(ByVal sessionID As Long) As ActionResult
            Dim s As SessionsEntity = _sessionRepo.GetSession(sessionID)
            Dim loc As LocationsEntity = _locationRepo.Get(s.LocationID)
            Return ICalEvent("session.ics", loc.CodeAndName, _
                                   s.SessionName, s.SessionName, _
                                   s.StartDateUTC, s.EndDateUTC)
        End Function
    End Class

I then created a custom ActionResult that creates the actual ical file. Not surprisingly I called it ICalEventResult. I created an DateTime extension method to format the utc dates into the correct format for the ical file (I won’t include it here).

Public Class ICalEventResult
        Inherits ActionResult
 
        Private _startUtc As DateTime
        Private _endUtc As DateTime
        Private _summary As String
        Private _description As String
        Private _location As String
        Private _fileName As String
 
        Public Sub New(ByVal startUtc As DateTime, ByVal endUtc As DateTime, _
                       ByVal summary As String, ByVal description As String, _
                       ByVal location As String, ByVal fileName As String)
 
            _startUtc = startUtc
            _endUtc = endUtc
            _summary = summary
            _description = description
            _location = location
            _fileName = fileName
 
        End Sub
 
        Public Overrides Sub ExecuteResult(ByVal context As System.Web.Mvc.ControllerContext)
            Dim str As New StringBuilder()
            With str
                .AppendLine("BEGIN:VCALENDAR")
                .AppendLine("VERSION:2.0")
                .AppendLine("BEGIN:VEVENT")
                .AppendLine(String.Format("DTSTART:{0}", _startUtc.ToUniversalTimeString))
                .AppendLine(String.Format("DTEND:{0}", _endUtc.ToUniversalTimeString))
                .AppendLine(String.Format("SUMMARY:{0}", _summary))
                .AppendLine(String.Format("DESCRIPTION:{0}", _description))
                .AppendLine(String.Format("LOCATION:{0}", _location))
                .AppendLine("END:VEVENT")
                .AppendLine("END:VCALENDAR")
            End With
            context.HttpContext.Response.ContentType = "text/calendar"
            context.HttpContext.Response.AddHeader("Content-disposition", String.Format("attachment; filename={0}", _fileName))
            context.HttpContext.Response.Write(str.ToString)
            context.HttpContext.Response.End()
        End Sub
    End Class

Finally I created a controller extension method called ICalEvent that simply returns an instance of the ICalEventResult.

Isn’t that doing the same thing as Ruby’s Gem Manager?

Basically it is. But so what? Some people say that Microsoft has been trying to play catch-up with Ruby / Rails for the last year or so. Once again, I say “So What?”. Don’t we as developers want improvements in our languages/platforms? These are just my initial thoughts about this interesting new project. Once I have played around with NuPack, I am sure I will much more to say. Until then, here are some links for your reading pleasure.

• Phil Haack introducing NuPack
• Scott Guthrie announcing the new projects
• Phil Haack talking about Mvc 3 Beta

Thankfully, after regaining my composure, I was able to find a the solution right here.

Ruby Class

class Person
 
	def initialze(firstName, lastName, age)
		@firstName = firstName
		@lastName = lastName
		@age = age
	end
 
	def IntroduceYourself
	    response = "Hello, my name is " + @firstName + " " + @lastName
            response = response + ", and I am " + @age + " year(s) old."
            return response
	end
 
end

Ruby Implementation

dan = Person.new("Dan", "Appleyard", 27)
puts dan.IntroduceYourself

My Thoughts

Rubys seems similar to Python. Since I liked Python, I like Ruby. At this point in my limited knowledge of these languages, I don’t really see the differences between Ruby and Python. My final examination will be that of Java.

Full Page Postback

When an end user selects an item in the first dropdown, the browser will postback the entire page and code on the server will populate the second dropdown with data and send the updated html markup back to the browser to render again. When there is just a small portion of the page that needs to be updated (as is the case in our example), that can be quite expensive! In this example, I have various javascript, css, and image files that have to be downloaded from the server to the client on every load of the back.

Server-side VB.Net Code

'this method is executed when the page posts back after a selection is made in the first dropdown
Private Sub drp1_SelectedIndexChanged(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles drp1.SelectedIndexChanged
        Dim letters As New List(Of String)
        letters.Add("A")
        letters.Add("B")
        letters.Add("C")
        letters.Add("D")
        letters.Add("E")
        letters.Add("F")
        letters.Add("G")
        letters.Add("H")
        letters.Add("I")
        letters.Add("J")
        letters.Add("K")
        letters.Add("L")
        letters.Add("M")
        letters.Add("N")
        letters.Add("O")
        letters.Add("P")
        letters.Add("Q")
        letters.Add("R")
        letters.Add("S")
        letters.Add("T")
        letters.Add("U")
        letters.Add("V")
        letters.Add("W")
        letters.Add("X")
        letters.Add("Y")
        letters.Add("Z")

        drp2.DataSource = letters
        drp2.DataBind()
    End Sub

The Server-side Numbers

When running this, we get a total of 218,049 bytes being sent from the server back to the browser. This number includes the actual html of the entire page, and any necessary javascript, css, or image files that are needed on the page. That is a lot of data!

Ajax Post

When an end user selects an item in the first dropdown, a javascript handler will call the server with a request for data to populate the second dropdown. The server gets the request and sends back just the data requested. The browser gets that data and puts it in the second dropdown. There is no page refreshing. There is no html, javascript, css, or image files being sent back to the client, because they are already there. It is very light!

jQuery Code

        $(document).ready(function() {
            $("#").change(function() {
               //when a selection is made in the dropdown
              //do an ajax post back to the page and get a list of strings
                $.ajax({
                    type: "POST",
                    url: "WebForm1.aspx/GetNextCombobox",
                    data: "{}",
                    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
                    dataType: "json",
                    success: function(msg) {
                       //we convert it into an array
                        var arr = jQuery.makeArray(msg.d);
                        //we find the dropdown we want to populate with data
                        var dd = $("#");
                        //let us empty it first of any existing data
                        dd.empty();
                        $.each(arr, function(i, v) {
                            //for each item in the array we got from the server, place it into the dropdown
                            dd.append($("").val(v).text(v));
                        });
                    }
                });
            });
        });

Server-side VB.Net Code

I am still trying out different syntax highlighters for my blog. This one is sometimes adding extra tags when not needed. Please excuse my malformed webmethod tag(s).

'this method is executed when the javascript ajax call requests the data for the second dropdown
 _
Public Shared Function GetNextCombobox() as List(Of String)
        Dim letters As New List(Of String)
        letters.Add("A")
        letters.Add("B")
        letters.Add("C")
        letters.Add("D")
        letters.Add("E")
        letters.Add("F")
        letters.Add("G")
        letters.Add("H")
        letters.Add("I")
        letters.Add("J")
        letters.Add("K")
        letters.Add("L")
        letters.Add("M")
        letters.Add("N")
        letters.Add("O")
        letters.Add("P")
        letters.Add("Q")
        letters.Add("R")
        letters.Add("S")
        letters.Add("T")
        letters.Add("U")
        letters.Add("V")
        letters.Add("W")
        letters.Add("X")
        letters.Add("Y")
        letters.Add("Z")

        Return letters
    End Function

The Ajax Numbers

With this implementation, the server is only passing 111 bytes of data back.

Recap

The postback implementation cost us 218,049 bytes of data being sent from the server to the browser, while the jQuery implementation cost us only 111 bytes! That is 1,964 times less data. Why anyone would be fine with dealing with 1964 times of overhead is beyond me, but the numbers don’t lie.

PHP Class

firstName = $firstName;
		$this->lastName = $lastName;
		$this->age = $age;
	}
	public function IntroduceYourself(){
		return "Hello, my name is $this->firstName $this->lastName, and I am $this->age year(s) old.";
	}
}

?>

PHP Implementation

IntroduceYourself();
?>

My Thoughts

I’ve had some minor experience with PHP before in the past. Nothing really to write home about. PHP is fine I guess, reminds me too much of C and C++ for some reason. I’m really looking for a language that I can do both in and out a web environment. PHP is just web. As of now, PHP is slighly over Perl and under Python. Tomorrow I will go over Ruby.