ProfileView

This is the official home of my new ProfileView control. ProfileView is an ASP.NET 2.0 server control that enables your users to view and/or edit their Personalization Profile. Read my original post about it for more background.

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The source code is now freely available! Download it and do with it as you wish. If you add any features, I would appreciate it if let me know about it using the contact information on my blog.

Download the binary

Download the source code

How to use

<%@ Register Assembly="FlimFlan.WebControls" Namespace="FlimFlan.WebControls" TagPrefix="flim" %>

Place the control markup where you want the ProfileView to appear:

<flim:ProfileView ID="UserProfile" runat="server" />

History

June 24, 2006: Release 1.2.524.2006

Added the UserName property to allow you to edit the profile of any user in the system - not just the current user.

January 8, 2006: Release 1.1.108.2006

Properties now display in the order they are listed in web.config
Design-time view now uses same rendering method as runtime
Fixed design-time bug that caused it to fail when a profile property type was not specified
Design-time view now has a Smart Tag to allow you to preview an anonymous user's profile

October 30, 2005: Updated for the final release (RTM) version of Visual Studio 2005 / .NET Framework 2.0

July 7, 2004: A significantly updated version is now available.

The design-time view now shows your actual profile properties, instead of sample properties
New ReadOnly mode allows you to use ProfileView to display a user's profile, without allowing them to edit it.
Now supports profile groups

TODO:

Add the ability to disable display of profile properties by their “group“
Create a templated UI (or at least more style/formatting properties)
Allow better support for display of custom types/collections

.NET | ProfileView

Sunday, October 30, 2005 8:27:07 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Comments [30] | Tracked by:
"ProfileView updated for .NET 2.0 final" (Joshua Flanagan) [Trackback]
"Significant update to ProfileView" (Joshua Flanagan) [Trackback]
"Accessing web.config at Design Time in .NET 2.0" (Joshua Flanagan) [Trackback]
"New release of ProfileView" (Joshua Flanagan) [Trackback]
"Manage ASP.NET 2.0 Profiles with ease - Introducing FlimFlan ProfileView Contro... [Trackback]
"ProfileView Control for ASP.NET 2.0" (blog.seanrock.com) [Trackback]
"And some else, come here..." (FlasheR!) [Trackback]

Monday, January 09, 2006 9:06:00 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Has anyone figured out how to retrieve profile data without updating the LastActivityDate? This has been a big headache for me and is keeping me from using profiles to store data.

Bryan Peters | bryanAT NOSPAMurbandude dot com

Monday, January 09, 2006 9:30:05 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

I can think of 2 possible solutions:

1) Create your own profile provider - you can make it do whatever you want. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/ASPNETProvMod_Prt5.asp

2) Modify the stored procedure created by the SqlRoleProvider. It looks like the one you want to modify is called aspnet_Profile_GetProperties (in your provider database - aspnetdb by default). The last statement in that procedure updates the LastActivityDate. Remove it (or comment it out).

Joshua Flanagan | joshAT NOSPAMflimflan dot com

Wednesday, January 11, 2006 7:45:02 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Thanks Joshua! I think modifying the stored procedure is my fix for this.

Bryan Peters | bryanAT NOSPAMurbandude dot com

Wednesday, March 01, 2006 10:38:53 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi,

I'm trying to download the newest release, but the .zip contain an older version: 1.0.1030.2005

I realy need the new features :)

One more thing.
How can I use this control in an admin page? I want my site admins to be able to change the users profile info.

Zoltan

Friday, March 03, 2006 6:35:34 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Zoltan -
You've stumbled upon something strange. When I download the release using Firefox, I *also* get the old version. I have checked and re-checked, uploading the new version many times, and I still get the old version. I then tried using IE, and it downloaded the correct new version. I have no idea why at this point, but its something to try.

Sorry, you cannot use it in an admin page to manage other user's profiles. My control is built on Microsoft's Profile Provider framework, and that framework wasn't designed for the use case of manipulating other people's profiles.

Joshua Flanagan | joshAT NOSPAMflimflan dot com

Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:01:22 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Great job on this! Especially the latest release being able to edit other profiles as an admin. Question - assuming the control is just dropped onto a page in design time and I want to select users from a separate list box and then update it, I currently need to click Reset. I tried but could find no way to reset the form other than clicking that button. Any thoughts on how I would accomplsh that?

Karl Wilkens | kwilkensAT NOSPAMmultiweb dot com

Tuesday, December 12, 2006 1:25:02 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi Joshua,
I am still learning asp.net and I am haour instruction having trouble implementing the profileView. Can you give me more detail about how to use it. I followed your instruction above but I got the following error message in the control: "error creatin control- conent1 unknow server tag 'flim:profileView' "

As a learning project, I trying to create a dating website where user will create their profile and a profile of their match. So all site visitors will be able to search for soulmate base on location, gender, age, sexual orientation, ect....
What is the best way to implement such a project?
Thank for your help and caoching!
Moussa

Moussa | kanieneAT NOSPAMhotmail dot com

Thursday, December 14, 2006 4:45:49 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Is the built in membership/login controls good for a website with thousands of visitors? Or is using the profile to 'chatty' with the database as I have read at other websites? I like your control by the way. Thanks for sharing.

Jeff

Thursday, December 14, 2006 9:43:16 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Jeff - The membership/login controls are independent of the profile controls. You can use one without the other. I do not know if the default providers are too chatty for a high traffic website, but the beauty of the provider model is that you can optimize the behind-the-scenes database interaction for your use, while still using the same UI controls (like the Login, and ProfileView). You can fully develop your website using the built-in local SQL Express database providers, and then swap them out for highly optimized providers when needed. Your web.config will change, but none of the rest of your code should have to.
There is now a lot of documentation (including full source code of the Microsoft providers) on how to create your own provider. Check out Scott Guthrie's post:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/04/13/442772.aspx

Joshua Flanagan | joshAT NOSPAMflimflan dot com

Monday, January 15, 2007 12:28:06 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi i like it thanks for taking your time to create it.

briiin | brion_aceAT NOSPAMyahoo dot co dot uk

Monday, January 29, 2007 9:23:16 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi Joshua,

I have heard great things about ProfileView, but I am new to Visual Studio and I'm not sure how to use the source code. Could you give me just a brief explanation about how to implement it? Many thanks in advance.

Fred

Fred Pinter | fredAT NOSPAMfredpinter dot com

Tuesday, January 30, 2007 4:32:01 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi,

I really appreciate you great help if you could kindly have a look at the below scenario and provide your feed back. thankyou.

I have a web site in which, I would like to create or have a table (with add/remove option)in each/every profile, & one column of that table should be dropdown (where he should be able to select the server name)& rest of the columns he can able to write/fill.

please do kinldy help me. Thanks again,

Rasheed | rasheed dot rahmanAT NOSPAMsamba dot com

Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:08:03 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

hai

i am doing project in asp dot net. i had a doubt that is how to set they dropdownlist size when you add more items

i was add 100 items if i click the dropdownlist the size is increase. i want display 10 items, other items view through scrollbar

reply me

velu | velumcaAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

Wednesday, March 28, 2007 12:04:53 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Downloaded this, the binary version works well only the formatting does not allow for freedom and I needed to have some profile properties disabled so that I could use a drop down instead.

Anyway, I was trying to play with the source code but it does not open with VS.2003 and also not with C# Express 2005

Emilio | meAT NOSPAMnotspam dot com

Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:41:35 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Profiles were not available in .NET 1.1, so Visual Studio 2003 will not work.
C# Express does not support class libraries, so it will not work either. You need a full version of Visual Studio 2005. You could probably also use MSBuild.exe, CSC.exe, or SharpDevelop to compile the code.

Joshua Flanagan | joshAT NOSPAMflimflan dot com

Saturday, April 14, 2007 7:42:29 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Actually I got it to compile in Express C# 2005 just fine. Altered the source to add a property so that one can select rendering type (DIV/Table) although DIV seems to be the best.

The problem I found using it in an admin page is that when you change the name of the user nothing happens. Further investigation revealed that when the Username property of the control is set it only updates the private member field but it does not bother to update the controls with the values of the properties of the selected user :O

Haven't yet figured out how to get it done without breaking the rest.

Emilio | degtAT NOSPAMhotmail dot com

Sunday, August 05, 2007 1:01:31 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

RE: Has anyone figured out how to retrieve profile data without updating the LastActivityDate? This has been a big headache for me and is keeping me from using profiles to store data.

When you call GetProfile, there is a second param (bool) you can set that will force it to NOT update.

Stephen Gutknecht | StephenAT NOSPAMIPCoast dot com

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 10:35:50 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Joshua

I want to use your control but have only one isue with it and do not have enough knowledge to modify your source code.

My Problem as follows:
I have Profile Properties defined in web.config as below - :
<add name="Country" type="string"/>
<add name="Gender" type="string"/>
<add name="Age" type="Int32"/>
<add name="DateOfBirth" type="DateTime"/>

When viewing the page containing your control thru the browser, only the COUNTRY and GENDER properties is available to be edited. Is there any reaon why the other two is not available. Might it have something to do with their TYPE?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Johan

Johan Van Dyk | vdykcjAT NOSPAMtelkom dot co dot za

Thursday, November 15, 2007 6:16:14 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Johan - Try setting the types to System.Int32 and System.DateTime, respectively.

Joshua Flanagan | joshAT NOSPAMflimflan dot com

Friday, November 16, 2007 10:15:11 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi Joshua

Thanks for your quick response. That did the trick. Is there any easy way of setting the properties for the individual fields, i.e. width of textboxes, validation etc.

Cheers,
Johan

Johan Van Dyk | vdykcjAT NOSPAMtelkom dot co dot za

Saturday, December 29, 2007 3:22:50 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Great control Josh - A quick question:

It would seem very common to be able to set a "display name" for profile properties. Is there any easy way to do this?

For example I might have a property called SpecialOffer, and the code should use that name, yet the HTML display might be "Free ECards".

Otherwise the UI could not be changed independent of the code, right?

Any feedback appreciated -
LTG

LTG | lwhitneyAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com

Saturday, March 15, 2008 3:33:41 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

how can i get profile for defined username by your control?

shahbaz tavackoli | stavackoliAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

Sunday, March 30, 2008 4:50:26 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

hi

i downloaded the .zip file.

But i could not find .aspx file on it.

how do i make this application run?

thanks.

jack

Sunday, March 30, 2008 8:21:12 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Jack - ProfileView is not an application, it is just a WebControl that you can use in your own application.

Joshua Flanagan | joshAT NOSPAMflimflan dot com

Monday, April 14, 2008 10:21:23 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

I was struggling with the problem of updating last activity date for quite a time. I'm really lucky of finding this blog after lots of digging in code and various blogs on the web.

So, what is the final solution to avoid updates of the last activity date? My code looks like this:

private MembershipUserCollection GetSiteUsers()
{
MembershipUserCollection siteMembers = new MembershipUserCollection();
MembershipUserCollection Members = Membership.GetAllUsers();

foreach (MembershipUser CurrUser in Members)
{
if (Profile.GetProfile(CurrUser.UserName).SiteID == Profile.SiteID &&
!Roles.IsUserInRole(CurrUser.UserName, "MasterAdmin"))
{
siteMembers.Add(CurrUser);
}
}
return siteMembers;
}

Naomi

Monday, April 14, 2008 5:55:46 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Naomi - I'm not sure what you mean by "final solution". I proposed two possible solutions in the comments above. You will need to decide which is the best for your situation.

Joshua Flanagan | joshAT NOSPAMflimflan dot com

Thursday, April 17, 2008 11:35:52 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

I don't see the second parameter in GetProfile method

Naomi

Wednesday, May 07, 2008 4:10:57 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

How about a screenshot of it in a working environment, so we can quickly see if this is something we would like to implement... or not. Gracias!

ben

Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:38:07 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Is this compatible with the table profile provider? Anyone tried it?
(http://www.asp.net/downloads/sandbox/table-profile-provider-samples/)

Sam | stuckerAT NOSPAMasicentral dot com

Tuesday, July 15, 2008 4:12:14 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Sam, the ProfileView control is built on top of the exposed Profile API, so it should work regardless of the provider implementation you are using.

Joshua Flanagan | joshAT NOSPAMflimflan dot com

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I have been developing software professionally for 10 years; focusing on .NET since its release. I use this site to interact with, and contribute to, the .NET software development community.

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Joshua Flanagan

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ProfileView

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How to use

History