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Entity Framework with ASP.NET MVC

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Adding the ASP.NET MVC Project

6:22 with James Churchill

Now let's add the ASP.NET MVC project to our solution and add the starter files for our web app.

Follow Along

To follow along committing your changes to this course, you'll need to fork the dotnet-comic-book-library-manager repo. Then you can clone, commit, and push your changes to your fork like this:

git clone <your-fork>
cd dotnet-comic-book-library-manager
git checkout tags/v1.4 -b adding-the-aspnet-mvc-project

ASP.NET MVC Project Starter Files

The starter files for the Comic Book Library Manager web app are available at http://treehouse-project-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/dotnet-ef-with-aspnet-mvc-comic-book-library-manager.zip.

Code

Here's the code for the AddArtist method that needs to be added to the ComicBook entity class.

/// <summary>
/// Adds an artist to the comic book.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="artistId">The artist ID to add.</param>
/// <param name="roleId">The role ID that the artist had on this comic book.</param>
public void AddArtist(int artistId, int roleId)
{
    Artists.Add(new ComicBookArtist()
    {
        ArtistId = artistId,
        RoleId = roleId
    });
}

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    Now that the first part of the solution setup process is complete, 0:00
    setting up the class library project. 0:03
    We're ready to work on the second part of the process, 0:06
    setting up the ASP.NET MVC project. 0:09
    Right click on the solution and select Add, New Project. 0:12
    Select the web category on the left. 0:16
    And then select the ASP.NET Web Application project template. 0:19
    Name the project, ComicBookLibraryManagerWebApp. 0:26
    Verify that the selected .NET Framework version is set to .NET Framework 4.6.1. 0:31
    And then click the OK button. 0:40
    In the new ASP.NET Web Application dialogue, 0:44
    select the Empty project template, and check the MVC check box. 0:48
    So Visual Studio will add the folders, and core references for the MVC web framework. 0:53
    Well then to hold off on adding a unit test project, and 0:59
    Authentication is set to No Authentication. 1:02
    Click OK to add the project. 1:06
    Next, let's add EF to the the MVC project 1:11
    And let's add a reference to the class library project. 1:33
    Be sure to just select the ComicBookShared project and click OK. 1:37
    Now, we are ready to download the starter files for the web app, and 1:43
    add them to the MVC project. 1:47
    The starter files contain a set of controllers, view models, and 1:49
    views for each page within our web app. 1:53
    That way, we don't have to start building our web app from scratch. 1:55
    I've already downloaded the zip file to my desktop, and unzipped it. 1:59
    If you're following along, see the teacher's notes for 2:03
    a link to download the files. 2:06
    After you've unzipped the archive, copy it's contents to the clipboard. 2:07
    Back in Visual Studio, right click on the MVC project and 2:11
    select Open Folder in File Explorer. 2:15
    Then paste the clipboard contents into the root of the project. 2:18
    When prompted, choose to Replace the files in the destination. 2:21
    Click the Show All Files button in the Solution Explorer toolbar, 2:30
    in order to show the files that we added to the project folder, but 2:34
    haven't yet been added to the project itself. 2:38
    Right click on the Content folder, and select, Include In Project. 2:41
    In the Controller's folder, include all four of the controller files. 2:47
    And include the fonts folder. 2:54
    We can remove the Models folder, 3:03
    as all of our entities are located in the class library project. 3:04
    Include the Scripts folder, And the ViewModels folder. 3:08
    In the Views folder, include the Artists, ComicBookArtist, 3:17
    ComicBooks, Series, Shared, and the _ViewStart.cshmtl file 3:23
    There is one more thing we need to do before we're ready to test the web app. 3:42
    The ComicBooksController add post action method expects the comicBook 3:46
    entity to have an AddArtist method that accepts two integer values. 3:51
    One for the ArtistId, and another for the RoleId. 3:56
    Here in Notepad, I have the code for 4:00
    the method that we need to add to the comicBook entity. 4:03
    If you're following along, you can find this code in the teacher's notes. 4:06
    I'll copy this code to the clipboard. 4:11
    Open the comicBook entity class in the class library project, and 4:16
    paste the code below the last method in the class. 4:20
    Now, let's try running the app. 4:33
    Be sure to set the MVC project to be start up project and press F5. 4:36
    Here's our web apps default or home page. 4:47
    The Comic Books page. 4:49
    There aren't any comic books being displayed, but that makes sense, 4:52
    as we haven't updated the action method that handled the request for 4:56
    this page to query our database context with a list of comics. 5:00
    We'll do that in the next section. 5:03
    Here is the Series page, and the Artists page. 5:06
    Going back to the Comic Books page, 5:11
    we can click the ADD COMIC BOOK button to view the add comic book page. 5:14
    Notice that none of the drop down list contain any items. 5:18
    again, we will work on fixing that in the next section. 5:22
    Notice the labels with the Series, IssueNumber, 5:26
    PublishedOn, and AverageRating fields. 5:29
    Ideally, the label for the Series field would be just the text series and 5:32
    not SeriesId. 5:37
    Here's the call to the LabelFor HTML helper method that's 5:53
    generating the series field label. 5:57
    SeriesId is the name of the ComicBook entity property return from 5:59
    the lambda expression that is being pass to the LabelFor method. 6:03
    How can we get the series field label to display as series instead of SeriesId. 6:07
    If you're following along, try fixing this issue as an exercise, 6:13
    before you proceed to the next video. 6:17
    After the break, I'll show you how I resolved this issue. 6:19

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