A41. Declare a dropdown as usual in the master page. Instead of overriding the InitializeCulture() place the same code in the Application_BeginRequest event handler in the global.asax. It is very similar to InitializeCulture() in the sense that it occurs early and no controls are ready yet. We have a little problem though, now the control is declared in a template and its name and id attributes rendered differently.
Another collection like the form variables collection that is also not originally server collection is the cookies collection. I use the cookie but it can be any of the ways for cross page communication that do not depend on server controls, like profile, session, querystring etc. We cannot use a cookie to carry the culture name value which comes from the dropdown selected item value, because the culture would always be a step behind. It would be set early on but later the dropdown selection change it but the resources for the previous culture come up. So normally only the page containing the dropdown would be a step behind, but because the dropdown is in the master page it appears that the whole site is ALWAYS ONE STEP BEHIND.
If, however, in the cookie, we pass the control name (which is information that never changes, so we can never be behind), instead of the culture name( which we can never keep up with), and then use that key to get the form variable value, we have pieced ourselves a workaround.
in the master page:
In global.asax
void Application_BeginRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e){
string lang = string.Empty;//default to the invariant culture
HttpCookie cookie = Request.Cookies["DropDownName"];
if (cookie != null && cookie.Value != null)
lang = Request.Form[cookie.Value];
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(lang);
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(lang);
}
Notice, there is absolutely no code in any of the content pages. Thats it ten lines of code and we are done for the whole site. This is not complete code, just a tip and trick of using master page and the .net event model to globalize code.
Q42. How to send a mail using System.Net.Mail?
A42. Here is the code...
Imports
System.Net.Mail
Public
Class MailHelper
'''
''' Sends an mail message
'''
''' Sender address
''' Recepient address
''' Bcc recepient
''' Cc recepient
''' Subject of mail message
''' Body of mail message
Public Shared Sub SendMailMessage(ByVal from As String, ByVal recepient As String, ByVal bcc As String, ByVal cc As
String, ByVal subject As String, ByVal body As String)
' Instantiate a new instance of MailMessage
Dim mMailMessage As New MailMessage()
' Set the sender address of the mail message
mMailMessage.From = New MailAddress(from)
' Set the recepient address of the mail message
mMailMessage.To.Add(New MailAddress(recepient))
' Check if the bcc value is nothing or an empty string
If Not bcc Is Nothing And bcc <> String.Empty Then
' Set the Bcc address of the mail message
mMailMessage.Bcc.Add(New MailAddress(bcc))
End If
' Check if the cc value is nothing or an empty value
If Not cc Is Nothing And cc <> String.Empty Then
' Set the CC address of the mail message
mMailMessage.CC.Add(New MailAddress(cc))
End If
' Set the subject of the mail message
mMailMessage.Subject = subject
' Set the body of the mail message
mMailMessage.Body = body
' Set the format of the mail message body as HTML
mMailMessage.IsBodyHtml = True
' Set the priority of the mail message to normal
mMailMessage.Priority = MailPriority.Normal
' Instantiate a new instance of SmtpClient
Dim mSmtpClient As New SmtpClient()
' Send the mail message
mSmtpClient.Send(mMailMessage)
End Sub
End Class
Web.config
