Tutorial Series: Free C# Fundamentals via ASP.NET Web Apps
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In this lesson, we're going to talk about NuGet, which is a Package Manager built into Visual Studio. The term “package” refers to any third-party library that you can import – and use to build applications – in your code. Package Managers can help you find, and manage, a plethora of freely available, open source projects that provide core functionality for your application. For example, why go off and build logging functionality when there are several good, open source logging utilities already available out there? You just need to download them, add them to your project, create a reference, and now you can use them inside of your project as if they were code that you’ve written yourself.
Installs files necessary to include a third party library/resource into your project.
Adds references to the class library files in your project.
Adds any dependencies, including other packages, that the target class library requires.
Updates the package, and its dependencies, to the latest version.
NuGet is a package manager that can run from command-line (for those used to using that kind of interface), as well as from a dialog in Visual Studio. You can browse, and download, available packages directly within Visual Studio, or download them from your web browser by going to:
To begin, create a new ASP.NET Web Forms application called NuGetExample, and add a Default.aspx page to the project. Navigate to the dialog utility for NuGet located at:
Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution
Locate the latest version of “Bootstrap” from NuGet.org and install it into your project:
Tip:
Bootstrap is a popular “mobile-first” Framework developed, and made openly available, by Twitter. It’s a package made up of mostly pre-written CSS and Javascript that you can reference in your web pages to employ a “responsive” grid-like format that adapts to the viewport of large and small devices alike.
Make sure you search for the package source through “nuget.org,” and click OK to finish the process:
Once it successfully installs to your project you will see a green checkmark beside it in your package manager, while an update arrow might be visible to show an update is available for a related dependency:
Go ahead and update JQuery to the latest version:
You can view dependencies by clicking on the package in the Package Manager. The dependencies section should display at the bottom of the page. Here the Bootstrap package shows a dependency on JQuery, including the version required:
The JQuery package, on the other hand, has no dependencies:
You will also see the added package references in the Solution Explorer:
These package files and folders break down as follows:
“Content” contains the core CSS files for Bootstrap.
“fonts” contains common icons for resized mobile menu elements.
“Scripts” contains Javascript/JQuery for handling browser-side behaviors.
“packages.config” contains references to these packages within an XML configuration file.
Some may prefer using the Package Manger Console as another way of finding and installing packages. You get to this Console by selecting from the Visual Studio menu:
Tools > NuGet Package Manger > Package Manager Console
You can find a list of commands at: https://docs.nuget.org/consume/command-line-reference
You can also type in “get-help nuget” in the command line to get a list of commands;
Use the “Install-Package” command to install the popular logging utility called “Elmah”, a popular logging tool:
You should then see a list of actions indicating a successful install:
If you run the “Update-Package” command you may, or may not, see available updates:
Note that you can find the installed packages in the project folder under “packages”:
Lesson 1 - Series Introduction
Lesson 2 - Installing Visual Studio 2015
Lesson 3 - Building Your First Web App
Lesson 4 - Understanding What You Just Did
Lesson 5 - Working with Projects in Visual Studio
Lesson 6 - Simple Web Page Formatting in Visual Studio
Lesson 7 - Variables and Data Types
Lesson 8 - Data Type Conversion
Lesson 9 - Arithmetic Operators
Challenge 2 - ChallengeSimpleCalculator
Solution - ChallengeSimpleCalculator
Lesson 11 - Conditional If Statements
Lesson 12 - The Conditional Ternary Operator
Challenge 3 - ChallengeConditionalRadioButton
Solution - Challenge Conditional RadioButton
Lesson 13 - Comparison and Logical Operators
Lesson 13 Challenge - First Papa Bob's Website
Solution - Challenge First Papa Bob's Website
Lesson 14 - Working with Dates and Times
Lesson 15 - Working With Spans of Time
Lesson 16 - Working with the Calendar Server Control
Challenge 4 - Challenge Days Between Dates
Solution - Challenge Days Between Dates
Lesson 17 - Page_Load and Page.IsPostBack
Lesson 18 - Setting a Break Point and Debugging
Lesson 19 - Formatting Strings
Challenge 5 - Challenge Epic Spies Assignment
Solution - Challenge Epic Spies Assignment
Lesson 20 - Maintaining State with ViewState
Lesson 21 - Storing Values in Arrays
Lesson 22 - Understanding Multidimensional Arrays
Lesson 23 - Changing the Length of an Array
Challenge 6 - Challenge Epic Spies Asset Tracker
Solution - Challenge Epic Spies Asset Tracker
Lesson 24 - Understanding Variable Scope
Lesson 25 - Code Blocks and Nested If Statements
Lesson 26 - Looping with the For Iteration Statement
Challenge 7 - Challenge For Xmen Battle Count
Solution - Challenge For Xmen Battle Count
Lesson 27 - Looping with the while() & do...while() Iteration Statements
Lesson 28 - Creating and Calling Simple Helper Methods
Lesson 29 - Creating Methods with Input Parameters
Lesson 30 - Returning Values from Methods
Lesson 31 - Creating Overloaded Methods
Lesson 32 - Creating Optional Parameters
Lesson 33 - Creating Names Parameters
Lesson 34 - Creating Methods with Output Parameters
Challenge 8 - Challenge Postal Calculator Helper Methods
Solution - Challenge Postal Calculator Helper Methods
Solution - Mega Challenge Casino
Lesson 35 - Manipulating Strings
Challenge 9 - Phun With Strings
Solution - Challenge Phun With Strings
Lesson 36 - Introduction to Classes and Objects
Challenge - Hero Monster Classes Part 1
Solution - Hero Monster Classes Part 1
Challenge - Hero Monster Classes Part 2
Solution - Challenge Hero Monster Classes Part 2
Lesson 37 - Creating Class Files Creating Cohesive Classes and Code Navigation
Lesson 38 - Understanding Object References and Object Lifetime
Lesson 39 - Understanding the .NET Framework and Compilation
Lesson 40 - Namespaces and Using Directives
Lesson 41 - Creating Class Libraries and Adding References to Assemblies
Lesson 42 - Accessibility Modifiers, Fields and Properties
Lesson 43 - Creating Constructor Methods
Lesson 44 - Naming Conventions for Identifiers
Lesson 45 - Static vs Instance Members
Challenge 10 - Challenge Simple Darts
Solution - Challenge Simple Darts
Lesson 46 - Working with the List Collection
Lesson 47 - Object Initializers
Lesson 48 - Collection Initializers
Lesson 49 - Working with the Dictionary Collection
Lesson 50 - Looping with the foreach Iteration Statement
Lesson 51 - Implicitly-Typed Variables with the var Keyword
Challenge 11 - Challenge Student Courses
Solution - Challenge Student Courses
Lesson 53 - Working with Enumerations
Lesson 54 - Understanding the switch() Statement
Lesson 55 - First Pass at the Separation of Concerns Principle
Lesson 56 - Understanding Exception Handling
Lesson 57 - Understanding Global Exception Handling
Lesson 58 - Understanding Custom Exceptions
Lesson 59 - Creating a Database in Visual Studio
Lesson 60 - Creating an Entity Data Model
Lesson 61 - Displaying the DbSet Result in an ASP.NET GridView
Lesson 62 - Implementing a Button Command in a GridView
Lesson 63 - Using a Tools-Centric Approach to Building a Database Application
Lesson 64 - Using a Maintenance-Driven Approach to Building a Database Application
Lesson 65 - Creating a New Instance of an Entity and Persisting it to the Database
Lesson 66 - Package Management with NuGet
Lesson 67 - NuGet No-Commit Workflow
Lesson 68 - Introduction the Twitter Bootstrap CSS Framework
Lesson 69 - Mapping Enum Types to Entity Properties in the Framework Designer
Lesson 70 - Deploying the App to Microsoft Azure Web Services Web Apps
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 1 - Setting up the Solution
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 2 - Adding an Order to the Database
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 3 - Passing an Order from the Presentation Layer
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 4 - Creating the Order Form
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 5 - Adding Enums
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 6 - Creating an Order with Validation
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 7 - Calculating the Order Price
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 8 - Displaying the Price to the User
Papa Bob's Mega Solution Part 9 - Creating the Order Management Page