Personal Projects

"Personal projects make you a better developer"

Like many software developers who are passionate about latest technologies, I enjoy having multiple personal software projects all the time. Sometimes I spend countless night and weekend hours on them and sometimes they get parked for months or even years. These projects give me a chance to work on the technologies or ideas that I cannot usually try at work. In most cases, they will also serve a personal purpose of mine or my contacts. A list of some of my such projects is given under the "My Software" section on this website.

Technolgy Preferences:

• App Type
  • 1) Universal: These days it makes sense to make one app that runs on all platforms: web, desktops, and mobile phones. Blazor is a good option.
  • 2) Web: If the app need to be accessible outside, go for web applications. I prefer ASP.NET Core with Razor Pages/C#.
  • 3) Desktop: For personal productivity apps, I prefer standalone desktop applications developed using .NET (Win Forms or WPF)/C#
  • 4) Mobile or Multiplatform: Some apps may need to use device specific features and it make sense to use a platform that targets both iOS and Android and I prefer .NET Multi-platform App UI or NET MAUI
• Data Storage
  • 1) Files: For single user or simple apps, I prefer data to be stored on file system itself by serializing the whole app data model class as encrypted binary data or simple XML format. This avoids the overhead of a database system, and makes everything faster as whole app data can be loaded to memory on startup.
  • 2) SQLite: is my next favourite free file based database.
  • 3) SQL Server: For any serious projects, SQL Server is still the best option and it makes it easier to manage if it is on Azure.

Development Environment

• Framework: .NET 5.0 | Download .NET
• IDE Tool: Visual Studio (VS) (I use the latest Professional Edition or the free Community Edition)
• DB Tool: SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
• Quick Code Editing: Notepad++
• Source Control and DevOps: Azure DevOps

Hosting

Firebase hosting is a Google hosting service which provides static web content to the user in a secure, fast, free and easy way. It by default provides free subdomains on the web.app domain that has SSL certificate.

• Install Node and NPM if not there from https://nodejs.org/en/
• Install firebase tools using command prompt: npm install -g firebase-tools
• Create a new project on Firebase at https://firebase.google.com/
• Add a web app to this project (Choose a new subdomain than the project one, copy paste the script tags to index.html)
• Using command prompt, navigate to the root folder of the project, not specific web app
• Login there using gmail id and password with the command: firebase login
• Initiate the project there: firebase init (Choose hosting, and go with default options)
• Once completed, define target: firebase target:apply hosting Coolwayfarer Coolwayfarer
• Edit the firebase.json file to add site configs.
  
{
"hosting": [ {
"target": "GetCool",
"public": "GetCool",
"ignore": [
"firebase.json",
"**/.*",
"**/node_modules/**"
]
},
{
"target": "Coolwayfarer",
"public": "Coolwayfarer",
"ignore": [
"firebase.json",
"**/.*",
"**/node_modules/**"
]
}
]
}

• Copy all publish content to the folder and then run firebase deploy to deploy all sites or run firebase deploy --only hosting:Coolwayfarer to deploy a specific site.

Development

Pre-requisites

• OS: Windows (Windows 10 or Windows 11)
• IDE: Visual Studio Community Edition (2022)
• Framework: .NET(.NET 7.0)
• Template: MudBlazor
  • Go to cmd: dotnet new --install MudBlazor.Templates
  • Components reference: https://mudblazor.com/components/alert

Project Creation

• Open VS > Create a New Project > MudBlazor Templates > Project Type (Server)

Authentication and Autherization without Identity

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq2btD9WufI

  Sqlite Database access using Dapper

• Add package reference: Microsoft.Data.Sqlite, Dapper, Dapper.SimpleCRUD

• Add an App_Data folder
• Add connection string in appsettings.json: "ConnectionStrings": {"CoolBMSContext": "Data Source=App_Data\CoolBms.db"}
• Add a DataContext class for creating connection and initializing database
• Add model class and service class to access data
• In Program.cs, add context and service class

• https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/implementing-dapper-in-blazor-server-application/

  Publish

• Rt Click project > Publish > Create new profile > Azure Web App (Windows) : Login using Azure microsoft account and choose the app and complete.