For some time I would just comment out this code until the rest of the module was complete. The problem with that is that as the application became more & more sophisticated, there was assorted initialization code elsewhere that has to be executed each & every time.
For the Run-Debug cycle it became exceptionally time consuming (and annoying) to manually go through the entire login process every time. Here's an example of the steps involved:
Oh sure, it's just a few keystrokes and mouse clicks each time but repeated dozens (or hundreds!) of times per day, one soon hopes for a way to automate the process. And I found it!
In Visual Studio's Solution Explorer, right-click on whatever page you're working on and choose "Set As Start Page" from the popup menu. Note: You've probably already done this!
Now in the Page_Init event handler of your Master Page (FYI all my projects use Master Pages) add this code:
protected void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
// If we're on a development machine then record the Start Page that Visual Studio is set to
string currPage = Page.ResolveUrl(Request.ServerVariables["URL"].ToString());
if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached && SessionData.GetCurrentUser() == "")
if (SessionData.GetSessionObject("CurrentDebugPage") == null)
SessionData.SaveSessionObject("CurrentDebugPage", currPage);
}
}
Then in the Page_Load event handler of your login page add this code:
// Note: This must be set above: using System.Web.Security;
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// This tests whether we're running on a development machine. If so, we'll automatically login.
if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached && SessionData.GetCurrentUser() == "")
{
string currUser = "your_username";
FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(currUser, false, 5);
string encryptedTicket = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket);
HttpCookie authCookie = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encryptedTicket);
Response.Cookies.Add(authCookie);
// If a specific page has been set as the Start Page then redirect to it; otherwise go to the Default page
string currDebugPage = SessionData.GetSessionObject("CurrentDebugPage").ToString();
HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect((currDebugPage == null) ? "~/default.aspx" : currDebugPage, true);
}
}
Note: The various SessionData methods are just simple ones I've constructed to ease the process of storing & retrieving variables in the Session State. I will gladly provide them upon request.
The result is that now, every time I run my project in Visual Studio, it jumps right to the desired web page, logging me in automatically. And yet when run in non-Debug mode it works normally. So I don't have to alter any code whenever I release a new production version.
In case you're wondering how this works, the process is quite straightforward:
- The Master page's Page_Init event handler is run before every Content page's Page_Load event handler. It records the start page that the developer wanted to go to, placing this string into a Session variable.
- When that desired page's Page_Load event handler is initially entered, the security checks therein reject entry because the user is not logged in. They then redirect to the Login page.
- In the Login page the special test in Page_Load passes because the code is being run from Visual Studio and because the user is not yet logged in.
- A FormsAuthenticationTicket is instantiated and then placed in a Cookie. This allows one to artificially login through the ASP.Net Login mechanism.
- The desired start page, originally stored by the Master Page, is retrieved from the Session State and control is redirected to that page.
- This second time the security checks in the desired page's Page_Load event handler pass because the user is now officially logged in.
