Consume Web API using JQuery

In this post I'll show how to consume an ASP.Net Web API using JQuery.

First create two ASP.Net MVC projects. Named them as Client and WebAPI. The WebAPI project contains all the API code hat we are going to access via Client. At the end WebAPI content will be published in to IIS and we will access API via Client.

Add Make, Model and Car classes.

Then add MakeApiController, ModelApiController and CarApiController like below.

At the end, Client page will be look like below.

Depending on selections combo boxes will be filled out. So in ModelApiConotroller, we need a API method like 'GetModelsByMakeId'. Also in CarApiController, we need a API method like 'GetCarByModelId'. But the issue is both traditional and verb-based routing cannot be used in the same ApiController. Already there is a Get Verb method in both controllers. So change the code in both controllers like below. Commented block is existing Get Verb method.

Now open IIS and create web application like below. I have used port 86. Publish your WebAPI project to that web application path.

Now we have to develop our Client project. First of all, download bootstrap and paste the files in to relevant locations.

Create a controller called CarController and open Index.chtml of that. Edit the code like below.

Create Demo.js file in Scripts folder and add relevant code. In the below image you can see how to call Web API resource using JQuery.

Now run the Client and browser for Car page.

You can find the source code of this in GitHub.

Web API Test Client

In this post I'm using a nuget package called "Simple Test Client For ASP.Net Web API". Using that we can easily test our web API resources.

First create a project using ASP.Net MVC Web API template. Add a class called Student.

Add StudentApiController like below.

Using nuget add WebApiTestClient package.

Open Api.chtml file which located in below location.

Edit file and add content highlighted in below image.

Run the web application and browse to help page. Click any of the API link. In bottom right corner you'll see the button called "Test API". When you clicked it using the opened dialog you can test your APIs very easily.

You can find the source code of this in GitHub.

Faster Web Development Using Bootstrap

Bootstrap is "Sleek, intuitive, and powerful mobile-first front-end framework for faster and easier web development". This is developed by a couple of engineers at Twitter. Since its first public release in 2011, it has found huge popularity among web developers for its ease of use and feature set, and in 2012 was the most popular project on GitHub.

In this post I'll explain how to use Bootstrap with ASP.net MVC project.

Create ASP.net MVC Internet web application. Using nuget search for Bootstrap and install it.

This will install style-sheet files and bootstrap java-script file.

Add a ASP.net MVC Layout page called _MyLayoutPage in to shared folder. Add reference for the .css file for bootstrap inside the head tag. Add JQuery and bootstrap java-script files right before the closing body tag. Code should be like below.

Add a empty MVC controller called DemoController. Then add the index view and it's layout page must be _MyLayoutPage.chtml. In Index.chtml add html code like below.

Run the project a browse for ~Demo/Index. You'll see a page like below.

There are lot more components described in bootstrap's components page. To understand complex controls add a new Demo Action method and related view. In that view add following code.

The output page is looks like below.

But this is not a responsive layout yet. A responsive layout site is basically a website that is coded for any and every type of screen size. Most of the responsive layouts features are all handled with CSS, some a little more with the help of jQuery and/or javascript. There are three "main" screens it is for, a regular desktop computer screen, a tablet screen (iPad, Kindle), and a mobile device screen (iPhone, Android, etc.). We can have this feature with Bootstrap very easily.
To make Demo.chtml, a responsive page, add bootstrap-responsive.min.css file after the bootstrap.min.css file. Then add viewport meta tag anywhere inside head tag. This allows mobile browsers to fit the entire web page inside the virtual display. Users can then zoom in on interesting content. However, if you set the viewport width to the actual device width, no zooming is required, because the content fits in the mobile browser.
Now the changed _MyLayoutPage.chtml look like below.

You can have responsive layout experience by increasing and decreasing the browser width and height.

You can find the source code of this in GitHub.