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  • ASP.NET 4 Hosting :: ValidateRequest=”false” not working in .Net 4.0 (VS.Net 2010)

    - by mbridge
    When we migrated our project from .NET 3.5 to .NET 4.0, we can get this error: Error: System.Web.HttpRequestValidationException A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client (ctl00$CC$txtAnswer=\”… World\r\n\r\nI am doing Testin…\”).”} System.Web.HttpRequestValidationException at System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateString(String value, String collectionKey, RequestValidationSource requestCollection)    at System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateNameValueCollection(NameValueCollection nvc, RequestValidationSource requestCollection)    at System.Web.HttpRequest.get_Form()    at System.Web.HttpRequest.get_HasForm()    at System.Web.UI.Page.GetCollectionBasedOnMethod(Boolean dontReturnNull)    at System.Web.UI.Page.DeterminePostBackMode()    at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)    at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)    at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest()    at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestWithNoAssert(HttpContext context)    at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)    at ASP.displaypost_aspx.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) in c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\a37c2f81\cfc4c927\App_Web_i2rujncl.9.cs:line 0    at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()    at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) What is the Cause? In ASP.NET 4, by default, request validation is enabled for all requests, because it is enabled before the BeginRequest phase of an HTTP request. As a result, request validation applies to requests for all ASP.NET resources, not just .aspx page requests. This includes requests such as Web service calls and custom HTTP handlers. Request validation is also active when custom HTTP modules are reading the contents of an HTTP request. Solution: To revert to the behavior of the ASP.NET 2.0 request validation feature, add the following setting in the Web.config file: <system.web>  <httpRuntime requestValidationMode=”2.0? /> </system.web>

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  • Is it typical for a provider of a web services to also provide client libraries?

    - by HDave
    My company is building a corporate Java web-app and we are leaning towards using GWT-RPC as the client-server protocol for performance reasons. However, in the future, we will need to provide an API for other enterprise systems to access our data as well. For this, we were thinking of a SOAP based web service. In my experience it is common for commercial providers of enterprise web applications to provide client libraries (Java, .NET, C#, etc.). Is this generally the case? I ask because if so, then why bother using SOAP or REST or any standard web services protocol at all? Why not just create a client libraries that communicate via GWT-RPC?

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  • What measures should be taken to prevent File System Object from accessing directories of other customers on an IIS shared web host?

    - by sean e
    We have our website on an IIS shared hosting server. While working on a file monitor for our site, we have found that the File System Object allows us to enumerate the directories and files of other customers that are on the same server as us. Attempting to enumerate files in some root customer directories results in access denied errors - but not all. Is this an IIS configuration error? A Windows configuration error? How can we direct our hosting company to fix the problem?

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  • What are the options for hosting a small Plone site?

    - by Tina Russell
    I’ve developed a portfolio website for myself using Plone 4, and I’m looking for someplace to host it. Most Plone hosting services seem to focus on large, corporate deployments, but I need something that I can afford on a very limited budget and fits a small, single-admin website. My understanding is that my basic options are thus: I can go with a hosting service that specifically provides Plone. I know of WebFaction, but what others exist? Also, I’d have two stipulations for a Plone hosting service: (a) It needs to use Plone 4, for which I’ve developed my site, and (b) it needs to allow me SSH access to a home directory (including the Plone configuration), so that I may use my custom development eggs and such. I could use a VPS hosting service. What are my options here? Again, I need something cheap and scaled to my level. I could use Amazon EC2 or a similar service (please tell me of any) and pay by the tiniest unit of data. I’m a little scared of this because I have no idea how to do a cost-benefit analysis between this and a regular VPS host. The advantage of this approach would be that I only pay for what I use, making it very scalable, but I don’t know how the overall cost would compare to any VPS host under similar circumstances. What factors enter into the cost of Amazon EC2? What can I expect to pay under either option for regular traffic for a new website? Which one is more desirable for when a rush of visitors drive up my bandwidth bill? One last note: I know Plone isn’t common for websites for individuals, but please don’t try to talk me out of it here; that’s a completely different subject. For now, assume I’m sticking with Plone for good. Also, I have seen the Plone hosting services list on Plone.org—it’s twenty pages long, and the first page was nothing but professional Plone consulting services that sometimes offer hosting for business clients. So, that wasn’t much help. Thank you!

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  • What are the options for hosting a small Plone site? [closed]

    - by Tina Russell
    Possible Duplicate: How to find web hosting that meets my requirements? I’ve developed a portfolio website for myself using Plone 4, and I’m looking for someplace to host it. Most Plone hosting services seem to focus on large, corporate deployments, but I need something that I can afford on a very limited budget and fits a small, single-admin website. My understanding is that my basic options are thus: I can go with a hosting service that specifically provides Plone. I know of WebFaction, but what others exist? Also, I’d have two stipulations for a Plone hosting service: (a) It needs to use Plone 4, for which I’ve developed my site, and (b) it needs to allow me SSH access to a home directory (including the Plone configuration), so that I may use my custom development eggs and such. I could use a VPS hosting service. What are my options here? Again, I need something cheap and scaled to my level. I could use Amazon EC2 or a similar service (please tell me of any) and pay by the tiniest unit of data. I’m a little scared of this because I have no idea how to do a cost-benefit analysis between this and a regular VPS host. The advantage of this approach would be that I only pay for what I use, making it very scalable, but I don’t know how the overall cost would compare to any VPS host under similar circumstances. What factors enter into the cost of Amazon EC2? What can I expect to pay under either option for regular traffic for a new website? Which one is more desirable for when a rush of visitors drive up my bandwidth bill? One last note: I know Plone isn’t common for websites for individuals, but please don’t try to talk me out of it here; that’s a completely different subject. For now, assume I’m sticking with Plone for good. Also, I have seen the Plone hosting services list on Plone.org—it’s twenty pages long, and the first page was nothing but professional Plone consulting services that sometimes offer hosting for business clients. So, that wasn’t much help. Thank you!

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  • Selecting Users For A/B (Champion/Challenger) Testing

    - by Gordon Guthrie
    We have a framework that offers A/B split testing. You have a 'champion' version of a page and you develop a 'challenger' version of it. Then you run the website and allocate some of your users the champion and some the challenger and measure their different responses. If the challenger is better than the champion at achieving your metrics then you dethrone the champion and develop a new challenger... My question is what mechanisms should I consider to allocate the versions? A number of options spring to mind: odd or even IP address (or sub-segments) ****.****.****.123 gets champion but .124 gets challenger cookie push - check for a champion/challenger cookie, if it doesn't exist randomly allocate the user to one and push the cookie Best practice? suggestions? comments? experience?

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  • Web App for smartphones in ASPX

    - by Ryan Knoll
    I have been looking around recently to try and find a good place to learn how to start making my website more smartphone friendly when it is visited by an iPhone, android, or blackberry. This is something like what Digg.com does when it is visited by a smartphone. I have found a few tutorials for PHP but none for ASPX, and all I have is windows servers. Could anyone point me in the right direction, and show me were to find a quick run through on how to do something like this? I am a bit lost. :(

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  • ASP.Net Web API in Visual Studio 2010

    - by sreejukg
    Recently for one of my project, it was necessary to create couple of services. In the past I was using WCF, since my Services are going to be utilized through HTTP, I was thinking of ASP.Net web API. So I decided to create a Web API project. Now the real issue is that ASP.Net Web API launched after Visual Studio 2010 and I had to use ASP.Net web API in VS 2010 itself. By default there is no template available for Web API in Visual Studio 2010. Microsoft has made available an update that installs ASP.Net MVC 4 with web API in Visual Studio 2010. You can find the update from the below url. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30683 Though the update denotes ASP.Net MVC 4, this also includes ASP.Net Web API. Download the installation media and start the installer. As usual for any update, you need to agree on terms and conditions. The installation starts straight away, once you clicked the Install button. If everything goes ok, you will see the success message. Now open Visual Studio 2010, you can see ASP.Net MVC 4 Project template is available for you. Now you can create ASP.Net Web API project using Visual Studio 2010. When you create a new ASP.Net MVC 4 project, you can choose the Web API template. Further reading http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/getting-started-with-aspnet-web-api/tutorial-your-first-web-api http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc4

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  • Modifying SQL Database on Shared Hosting

    - by apocalypse9
    I have a live database on a shared hosting server. I am making some major changes to my site's code and I would like to fix some stupid mistakes I made in initially designing the database. These changes involve altering the size of a large number of fields, and enforcing referential integrity between tables properly. I would like to make the changes on both my local test server and the remote server if possible. I should note that while I'm fairly comfortable with writing complex queries to handle data, I have very little experience modifying database structure without a graphical interface. I can access the remote database in the visual studio database explorer but I can not use that for anything other than data manipulation. I installed Sql Management Studio express last night and after 40+ crashes I gave up - I couldn't even patch the damn thing. The remote server is SQL 2005 / The MyLittleAdmin web interface is available. So my question is what is the best way to accomplish these changes. Is there a graphical interface I can use on the remote server? If not is there an easy way to copy the database to my local machine, fix it, and re upload? Finally if none of the above are viable does anyone have links to a decent info on fixing referential integrity via query? Sorry for the somewhat general question - I feel like I am making this far harder than it should be but after searching / trying all night i haven't gotten anywhere. Thanks in advance for the help. I really appreciate it. ...Also does anyone have a time machine I can borrow- I need to go kick my past self's ass for this.

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  • Google I/O 2010 - Developing web apps for Chrome Web Store

    Google I/O 2010 - Developing web apps for Chrome Web Store Google I/O 2010 - Developing web apps for the Chrome Web Store Chrome 101 Erik Kay Google Chrome is a powerful platform for developing web apps. With Chrome web apps, we're making it easier for users to discover and use these apps. Learn how to build and sell apps for the Chrome Web Store. For all I/O 2010 sessions, please go to code.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 8 0 ratings Time: 01:00:29 More in Science & Technology

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  • Migrating Shared Hosting and Email

    - by Chrisc
    Hey Guys, I know there has already been a question that has been posted here about migrating shared hosting accounts, but wanted to get a second opinion on my plan to move hosting providers. My business is moving our shared hosting account (hosting and email) to a new provider, and would like to have minimal downtime. Here is our current plan: Create a backup of our old site Upload our site to the new host Set up duplicate email accounts with our new host Change the name server records on our domain to point to our new host Leave our old site up long enough for DNS records to propagate completely. I'm hoping this should result in little downtime for both website and email. Because of the volume of high-importance emails our company receives on a daily basis downtime is very expensive and not tolerated. Thanks, Chris

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  • Best Asp.net Hosting

    - by dotnetguts
    There are many asp.net web hosting companies which spends lot on advertisement and also gives you very cheaper rate, as low as $5, but when it comes to support they are simply hopeless. Everyone can you please pass your experience with your past hosting companies and suggest any good asp.net hosting company? Please consider following requirement factors 1) Asp.net 3.5 or 4.0 supported. 2) Url Rewriter support 3) GZip support (Dynamic through code) 4) Initial Setup support (If required) 5) SQL Server 2005 or 2008 6) Allow to access SQL Server DB using SQL Mgmt Studio 7) Environment supporting Backup and Restore of DB on my own, without involving tech support team 8) Full Text Search support 9) FTP support 10) I can able to send atleast 500 Emails daily. 11) 99.9% Up Time (No matter all web hosting say they have 99.9% Up Time, but its not true). 12) Alert Email to be sent when they do any maintenance or during downtime. 13) Hosting Price should be reasonable. Incase you feel i am missing something please add to the list. Can anyone suggest good webhosting company based on above factors?

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  • Getting beyond basic web programming languages. How to be awesome?

    - by user73962
    I'm a web developer that's done a bunch of projects using PHP, JQuery/JS, Mysql using PhPMyAdmin, CSS, HTML and a tiny bit of XML. Basically lots of work with CMS's and freehand coding. I'm looking to take things to the next level. I've done a lot of freelance and small contract work, but I'm dying to excel. I'm tired of acting as tech support for all these "non-tech" companies that barely know how to use their own computers..."really, you didn't think to backup your files before switching to a new server??". Think of potential employers as amazon, netflix, twitter, google, etc. I don't necessarily want to work for these guys specifically, but potentially organizations like this. I could be wrong, but I feel like a big company like this would laugh at me if I interviewed. For example, how helpful is knowing Ruby, SQL (commands without interface), C++, API's, Oracle, Java, debugging, qa, etc? (I realize this is a very random list). I use Notepad ++, but have heard that the bigger boys use IDE interfaces. I'm not really interested in building desktop apps, only web related stuff. I feel like I've reached my potential and want to really take it up a notch. I see a lot of projects on GitHub and I'm amazed at what people have created. Note - my degree is in economics but I've done web dev since high school. I definitely wish I took more comp sci/programming courses in college. I'm 27 and want to be awesome at web dev before it's too late. Not just decent. Any advice? Book suggestions? Thanks

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  • Suggested Web Application Framework and Database for Enterprise, “Big-Data” App?

    - by willOEM
    I have a web application that I have been developing for a small group within my company over the past few years, using Pipeline Pilot (plus jQuery and Python scripting) for web development and back-end computation, and Oracle 10g for my RDBMS. Users upload experimental genomic data, which is parsed into a database, and made available for querying, transformation, and reporting. Experimental data sets are large and have many layers of metadata. A given experimental data record might have a foreign key relationship with a table that describes this data point's assay. Assays can cover multiple genes, which can have multiple transcript, which can have multiple mutations, which can affect multiple signaling pathways, etc. Users need to approach this data from any point in those layers in the metadata. Since all data sets for a given data type can run over a billion rows, this results in some large, dynamic queries that are hard to predict. New data sets are added on a weekly basis (~1GB per set). Experimental data is never updated, but the associated metadata can be updated weekly for a few records and yearly for most others. For every data set insert the system sees, there will be between 10 and 100 selects run against it and associated data. It is okay for updates and inserts to run slow, so long as queries run quick and are as up-to-date as possible. The application continues to grow in size and scope and is already starting to run slower than I like. I am worried that we have about outgrown Pipeline Pilot, and perhaps Oracle (as the sole database). Would a NoSQL database or an OLAP system be appropriate here? What web application frameworks work well with systems like this? I'd like the solution to be something scalable, portable and supportable X-years down the road. Here is the current state of the application: Web Server/Data Processing: Pipeline Pilot on Windows Server + IIS Database: Oracle 10g, ~1TB of data, ~180 tables with several billion-plus row tables Network Storage: Isilon, ~50TB of low-priority raw data

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  • Duplicate IIS web site with Web Deploy

    - by gsantovena
    I have a Win2008 server with IIS 7 and I want to duplicate one web site and just change the binding port and the application pool that is using, so I will have 2 web sites (locally or remote) with same configuration but listening on different ports. Is there a way to do this with web deploy tool ir order to deploy locally and remotely this unique web site and change the binding ports in the destination?

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  • Multi-module web project with Spring and Maven

    - by Johan Sjöberg
    Assume we have a few projects, each containing some web resources (e.g., html pages). parent.pom +- web (war) +- web-plugin-1 (jar) +- web-plugin-2 (jar) ... Let's say web is the deployable war project which depends on the known, but selectable, set of plugins. What is a good way to setup this using Spring and maven? Let the plugins be war projects and use mavens poor support for importing other war projects Put all web-resource for all plugins in the web project Add all web-resources to the classpath of all jar web-plugin-* dependencie and let spring read files from respective classpath? Other? I've previously come from using #1, but the copy-paste semantics of war dependencies in maven is horrible.

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  • Ditch cPanel / WHM in favour of manual seup

    - by BWRic
    We currently use cPanel / WHM on a reseller account but are looking at getting a dedicated server. My first thought was to duplicate this set up on the dedicated box to allow us to quickly create new accounts. I'll be a managed server so they'll have set up the LAMP stack. I'm curious if I actually need cPanel and WHM. We don't use many of the features from cPanel / WHM, just creating accounts and databases, clients do not have FTP access. I'm no sys admin and come from a Windows / GUI background but have some knowledge in setting up development servers. WHM: Creating accounts I presume this sets up the Apache virtual host, FTP access and DNS settings. I've some knowledge of editing the Apache files to create virtual hosts. Am I correct in thinking as long as the DNS is pointing to the server IP and the virtual host is configured the server can serve the (php) pages? I'm not sure I need per site FTP access as only we will have access so I could have a server wide/htdocs only access to view all the site. The company who supply the dedicated hosts would also provide the own DNS management tool so I'm not need to cPanel one. MySQL: Creating users and databases We use cPanel to create the MySQL users and databases. As it's a dedicated box and I can have root access I think this could be replaced by SQLyog for db management and phpMyAdmin for user management. Do you I need cPanel or can I get by editing a few text files for creating the accounts, then use the MySQL tools for databases? Or am I missing something major with how the sites are configured?

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  • How to deploy a single website to multiple physical servers.?

    - by user70122
    I want to deploy my PHP and Ajax based Dating website to multiple physical servers. Does anyone know the method. Is there possible any method to save the files and setting (and also the user input), on all of the physical server, so that the servers do the following jobs. Servers used as a network, speeding up the process giving a robust thing to the end user. Data to be stored on all the servers' hard drivers, and Every server have the internet connection from different provider, so for example a. if any of the internet providers gets down, or b. there occur any hardware or power failure, the website still runs, without a break and without any data loss. Does anyone know about some online course, or some comprehensive tutorials about this topic ?

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  • ASP.NET MVC hosting problem, routing, handlers and modules

    - by johnabs
    Hi, This is one of them again, hosting with fasthosts. I recently purchased a windows developer package from them. When I tried to deploy my ASP.NET 3.5 MVC project, which was working fine with the same host on a reseller account, it is not working. The reason to move from reseller to a normal Windows Developer package is, the MS-SQL server database is too expensive in a reseller account, strange! I contact them, and they are saying they upgraded the control panel. The technical support said, I need to disable the Modules and Handlers from the web.config file. Also I need to deploy them as .dll files. I am not sure how to do that. The website is partially working now. I think the problem is now with the routing. I have not deployed any .dlls apart from the System.Web.Mvc.dll, System.Web.Routing.dll and System.Web.Abstractions.dll. I have not got a clue on how to deploy the Modules and Handlers. The code that I commented on the web.config file is as follows. <!--<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"> <remove name="ScriptModule" /> <remove name="UrlRoutingModule" /> <add name="ScriptModule" preCondition="managedHandler" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/> <add name="UrlRoutingModule" type="System.Web.Routing.UrlRoutingModule, System.Web.Routing, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> </modules> <handlers> <remove name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated"/> <remove name="ScriptHandlerFactory" /> <remove name="ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices" /> <remove name="ScriptResource" /> <remove name="MvcHttpHandler" /> <remove name="UrlRoutingHandler" /> <add name="ScriptHandlerFactory" verb="*" path="*.asmx" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/> <add name="ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices" verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/> <add name="ScriptResource" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> <add name="MvcHttpHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="*" path="*.mvc" type="System.Web.Mvc.MvcHttpHandler, System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/> <add name="UrlRoutingHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="*" path="UrlRouting.axd" type="System.Web.HttpForbiddenHandler, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" /> </handlers>--> Anybody got any ideas please. Thank you for your time.

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  • The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

    - by Rick Strahl
    High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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