Company Info
PeterBlum.com
E-mail:
contact@peterblum.com
Web:
http://www.peterblum.com
Pricing & Licensing
Web Server License: $50
Site License: $250
Redistribution License: $500
VAM’s Source Code: $250
(All
prices in US Dollars)
About the Author
Anand
Narayanaswamy, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Visual C#
is an independent writer, web developer and technical consultant based in Trivandrum, India. Anand runs
learnXpress.com and specializes in ASP, ASP.NET, C#, Visual Basic
.NET and Visual Basic 6.0 and in the development of courseware,
technical articles, documentation, and reviews of products and
books. He is available for writing documentations, help files, product reviews,
editing and development jobs.
Reach him at
ananddotnet@yahoo.co.in
 |
Every
website captures information from its users via Forms. There may be
different forms for contacting the webmaster, putting feedback about
the site, registration and login. A web developer should not only
design the forms but also implement proper rules for checking the
accuracy of the data entered by the users before submitting it to
the server database or via e-mail. In developer’s parlance, this
process is called as Validation. Prior to .NET, developers employed
Java Scripts and VBScripts for validating the entries. The error
messages can be displayed with the help of message boxes. The main
problem associated with these scripting languages is that they are
some times very complicated and also they are browser dependant.
With the evolution of .NET, the process of validating the data has
become much easier for developers. .NET provides five useful
controls namely RequiredFieldValidator, CustomValidator,
CompareValidator, RangeValidator and RegularExpressionValidator.
With the help of these controls, developers can quickly implement
validation for their WebPages. Even though these controls helped
developers a lot, still many of them were not satisfied and they
demanded more such controls. This is because they have to write
complex set of code with CustomValidator control using JavaScript in
order to achieve various tasks. PeterBlum’s Professional Validation
and More (VAM) is a replacement to Microsoft’s validation. From my
point of view, this is the only second generation solution available
for performing validations.
The product contains 16 validation
controls with support for new functionalities like text length, the
state of a checkbox or radio button, how many items are selected in
a CheckBoxList or multi-selection ListBox, and which radiobutton is
selected in a RadioButtonList. VAM supports non IE browsers (IE Mac,
Netscape 6+ (all platforms), Opera 7, and Apple Safari) on the
client-side while Microsoft’s Validation Controls doesn’t. This
feature makes the product not only powerful but also users with
different browsers can view the content without any problems.
One of the other interesting features of VAM is that of Validation
Groups. Using the group, you can connect a submit button to a
specific set of group of validation controls. This can be achieved
by assigning the same string in the Group property of the validators
and VAM’s own submit buttons. With VAM’s MultiConditionValidator,
you can merge several validation controls and display a common
message. One common use for this functionality is to merge the
RequiredFieldValidator with another. You cannot perform these kinds
of functionalities with the Microsoft’s Validation Controls.
VAM provides a cute feature for
formatting error messages. You can add an image before an error
message. You can even use an image with a tooltip or an alert box
that shows the error message. These formatting techniques will save
lot of screen space as well. One of the features of this product
which I liked very much is that VAM supports the usage of tokens.
These tokens will be replaced by the appropriate values at runtime.
For example, you can display a message like as shown below:
Please enter a value greater than {MINIMUM} in {LABEL}
You can also display a blinking error
message using VAM. The product also provides functionalities for
Localization. This means, you can provide different error message
strings for different languages. VAM offers specialized TextBoxes
like the IntegerTextBox, DecimalTextBox, and CurrencyTextBox. The
ValidationSummary control shipped with VAM supports hyperlinks on
each error message. The product monitors a WebForm control with the
help of FieldStateController. The main feature of the
FieldStateController is to change the appearance of your web form on
the client-side as the user performs several tasks, like marking a
checkbox can make another control visible, enabled, change its style
sheet or a URL to an image and much more.
The installation process went off very smoothly. The vendor will
supply a special license file via e-mail which you have to apply
appropriately in order to work with VAM. In addition to the
installation of the core setup file which you have downloaded, you
have to also install ASP.NET Design Mode Extender (ADME) on your
system. VAM uses the extender for performing many different
operations. You can know more details about ADME from the User’s
Manual which ships with the product. The User’s Manual also provides
a complete list of all features of VAM. I must say that the manual
is very elaborate and a very useful companion for the product.
Unlike many other products the documentation is in PDF format. The
manual explains the usage of each and every validation controls
along with the relevant source codes. I experienced certain
difficulties to work with this product initially. But I sorted out
the problems by going through their User’s Manual. The vendor
provides quick support by e-mail. They also clarified all my doubts
regarding the product very positively. For more information
about the product, visit
http://www.PeterBlum.com/VAM/Home.aspx |