Adding Dynamic Top 5 News List On Home Page RSS

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  Horizon

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  155 Points

  79 Posts

  Adding Dynamic Top 5 News List On Home Page

  Nov 03, 2008 02:40 PM|LINK

  So I have been modding the small business toolkit to my liking.  Since I have had so much help on the site here I figured I would give back.
  Out of the box the toolkit has a static news list on the home page, under Recent News.  I now have successfully put in a repeator and pulled from the XML to create a list that updates when you update the XML.

  I am going to try and list the directions here, make sure you make backups of each file because most of this is from memory on how I did this.

  Open App_code/News/News.vb

  I added it after the method GetAllNews...
   

  ' <summary>
      ' Returns Latest 5 news items
      ' </summary>
      Public Shared Function GetTop5News() As List(Of NewsItem)
          Return Provider.GetTop5News()
      End Function 'New

  Next open App_code/News/NewsProvider.vb

  Add it after GetAllNews method...

      Public MustOverride Function GetTop5News() As List(Of NewsItem)

   Next open App_code/News/SqlNewsProvider.vb, I don't use SQL so I cannot vouch for this code....

      ' <summary>
      ' Get the latest 5 news articles
      ' </summary>
      Public Overrides Function GetTop5News() As List(Of NewsItem)
  
          Dim list As List(Of NewsItem) = New List(Of NewsItem)
  
          ' create a connection, invoke a stored procedure and add results to a list
          Dim con As New SqlConnection(connectionString())
          Try
              con.Open()
              Dim cmd As New SqlCommand("GetNews", con)
              Dim r As SqlDataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader()
              Dim curr As NewsItem
              While r.Read()
                  If TypeOf r("id") Is DBNull Or TypeOf r("visible") Is DBNull Or TypeOf r("title") Is DBNull Then
                      Throw New InvalidOperationException(Messages.NewsItemRequiredAttributesMissing)
                  End If
                  curr = New NewsItem(CStr(r("id")), CType(r("visible"), [Boolean]), CStr(r("title")))
                  curr.Date = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("date"))
                  curr.Content = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("content"))
                  curr.ImageUrl = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("imageUrl"))
                  curr.ImageAltText = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("imageAltText"))
                  list.Add(curr)
              End While
              con.Close()
          Finally
              con.Dispose()
          End Try
  
          Return list
      End Function 'New

   

   

   

  Next we do App_code/News/XmlNewsProvider.vb
   

      '/ <summary>
      '/ Returns latest news items
      '/ </summary>
      Public Overrides Function GetTop5News() As List(Of NewsItem)
          Dim dataSet As DataSet = Util.ReadAndValidateXml(_xmlFile, _xsdFile)
          Dim list As List(Of NewsItem) = New List(Of NewsItem)
          Dim t As DataTable
          Dim c As Int16
          For Each t In dataSet.Tables
              Dim curr As NewsItem
              Dim r As DataRow
              For Each r In t.Rows
                  curr = New NewsItem(CStr(r("id")), CBool(r("visible")), CStr(r("title")))
                  curr.Date = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("date"))
                  curr.Intro = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("intro"))
                  curr.Content = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("content"))
                  curr.ImageUrl = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("imageUrl"))
                  curr.ImageAltText = Util.ReturnEmptyStringIfDbNull(r("imageAltText"))
                  list.Add(curr)
              Next r
          Next t
          c = list.Count()
          c = c - 4
          list.RemoveRange(0, c)
          list.Reverse()
          Return list
      End Function 'New

   This all your updating in the app_code files.

  Now you must add an objectdatasource and a repeater to your home page....Save all files.

  Open Default.aspx in design mode.
  Drag on an objectdatasource from your toolbox, click configure data source.
  uncheck show only data components, in the drop down select News, click NEXT
  On the next drop down select GetTop5News() and click FINISH

  Drag a Repeater onto the page and then within the built in controls select the objectdatasource you just created within the drop down.

  Finally go into the HTML and fix it up as so...remember to put it within the UL tags so that you can get that list look!  I cannot remember if you need to edit the XSD file as it was a while ago that I created this (I most recently put my catalog items in a list similar to this on the home page, let me know how it goes!

   

              <ul class="list-of-links">
                  <asp:Repeater ID="Repeater1" runat="server" DataSourceID="ObjectDataSourceTop5">
                  <ItemTemplate>
                        <li><a href="<%# "News.aspx?newsId=" + Eval("Id") %>"><%# Eval("Title")%></a></li>
                  </ItemTemplate>
                  </asp:Repeater>
              </ul>

   

• • Reply
  

  KathWeaver

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  2 Points

  1 Post

  Re: Adding Dynamic Top 5 News List On Home Page

  Nov 06, 2008 03:27 AM|LINK

  You rock!

   Not only does this post give a useful addition to a website, but it really explains how to do some key things.  THANKS  -- see http://www.hillcresthsdallas.org to see what you helped with.

• • Reply
  

  Horizon

  Member

  155 Points

  79 Posts

  Re: Adding Dynamic Top 5 News List On Home Page

  Nov 07, 2008 01:13 AM|LINK

  Kath great to hear, I wasn't sure if I explained it quite well.  When I get some time I will post the one for the catalog if you want those items to be posted to the front page dynamically too.