Building a Note-Taking App in ASP.NET
What Will I Learn?
- You will learn Building a Note-Taking App in ASP.NET
Requirements
- ASP.NET
Difficulty
- Intermediate
Building a Note-Taking App in ASP.NET
The idea is to keep things as simple as possible. To that end, the data is simply stored in text files on the file system. I could just have used a database, but this seemed simpler and I also liked the fact that if push came to shove I could always just download the text files to a flash drive and take them with me. The downside to this approach is that you'll need to have NTFS permissions to read and write to the notes folder.
The interface is as simple as I could get it. At the top of the page is a DropDownList which lists the notes that currently exist. Selecting a note from the list loads the note name into a TextBox and the contents of the note into a TextArea. I included a blank entry as the first item in the DropDownList. Selecting it empties the TextBox and TextArea making it easy to create a new note.
Editing a note is straight-forward. Load the note, make your changes, and click the "Save Note" button. Creating a new copy of an existing note is easy as well. Simply load the existing note and change the note's name in the TextBox before clicking the "Save Note" button. The original note remains and a new note is created with the new name.
There is no simple process for renaming a note. It's not technically difficult, but it would have muddled up the UI a little so if you want to rename a note you're stuck creating a new one and deleting the old. Which brings us to deleting a note. Simply select the note to delete in the DropDownList and click the "Delete Note" button. Please be careful though... there's no confirmation step or undelete. Once you delete a note, it's gone.
The Code
The code is relatively straight-forward and I commented it pretty well so I won't spend too much time discussing it here. The only thing really worth mentioning is that I am using AutoPostBack on the DropDownList to eliminate a "Load Note" button that would otherwise be needed.
<%@ Page Language="VB" Strict="true" validateRequest="false" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.IO" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<script runat="server">
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
' When the page first loads, fill the DropDownList
' with the list of existing notes.
If Not Page.IsPostBack Then
LoadNoteList("")
End If
End Sub
Protected Sub ddlNotes_SelectedIndexChanged(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
' Set the value of the note name textbox.
txtNoteName.Text = ddlNotes.SelectedValue
' If no note is selected clear the textarea, otherwise
' load it with the contents of the selected note.
If ddlNotes.SelectedValue = "" Then
txtNoteText.InnerText = ""
Else
txtNoteText.InnerText = ReadNoteFromFile(ddlNotes.SelectedValue)
End If
End Sub
Protected Sub btnDeleteNote_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
DeleteNoteFile(ddlNotes.SelectedValue)
' Reload the note list and set to the default selection
' since the current note no longer exists.
LoadNoteList("")
End Sub
Protected Sub btnSaveNote_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
WriteNoteToFile(txtNoteName.Text, txtNoteText.InnerText)
' Reload the note list to include the new note we may have
' just created. The parameter specifies that the note just
' saved should be made the selected note in the DropDownList.
LoadNoteList(txtNoteName.Text)
End Sub
Sub LoadNoteList(ByVal strSelectedNote As String)
Dim I As Integer
Dim arrFiles() As FileInfo
Dim myDirInfo As New DirectoryInfo(Server.MapPath("notes/"))
Dim liSelected As ListItem
' Get a list of all .txt files in the notes folder.
arrFiles = myDirInfo.GetFiles("*.txt")
' Clear the list and repopulate. The first entry is blank.
' The others each correspond to a .txt file in the notes folder.
ddlNotes.Items.Clear()
ddlNotes.Items.Add("")
For I = LBound(arrFiles) To UBound(arrFiles)
ddlNotes.Items.Add(Replace(arrFiles(I).Name.ToString, ".txt", ""))
Next I
' If a note/file is loaded make that one the selected entry.
liSelected = ddlNotes.Items.FindByText(strSelectedNote)
If Not liSelected Is Nothing Then liSelected.Selected = True
End Sub
Sub WriteNoteToFile(ByVal strNoteName As String, ByVal strNoteText As String)
Dim objStreamWriter As StreamWriter
' Get a handle on the file to write to
' and connect it to the StreamWriter object
objStreamWriter = File.CreateText(Server.MapPath("notes/" & strNoteName & ".txt"))
' Write text
objStreamWriter.Write(strNoteText)
' Flush to disk and close file
objStreamWriter.Flush()
objStreamWriter.Close()
End Sub
Function ReadNoteFromFile(ByVal strNoteName As String) As String
Dim objStreamReader As StreamReader
Dim strFileContents As String
' Get a handle on the file to read from
' and connect it to the StreamReader object
objStreamReader = File.OpenText(Server.MapPath("notes/" & strNoteName & ".txt"))
' Read the whole file and close the StreamReader
strFileContents = objStreamReader.ReadToEnd()
objStreamReader.Close()
' Set the return value of our function
ReadNoteFromFile = strFileContents
End Function
Sub DeleteNoteFile(ByVal strNoteName As String)
' Delete the appropriate note file
File.Delete(Server.MapPath("notes/" & strNoteName & ".txt"))
End Sub
</script>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head>
<title>Notepad</title>
</head>
<body>
<form id="myForm" runat="server">
<asp:DropDownList ID="ddlNotes" runat="server"
AutoPostBack="True"
OnSelectedIndexChanged="ddlNotes_SelectedIndexChanged"
/>
<asp:Button ID="btnDeleteNote" Text="Delete Note" runat="server"
OnClick="btnDeleteNote_Click"
/>
<br /><br />
Note Name: <asp:TextBox ID="txtNoteName" runat="server" />
<asp:Button ID="btnSaveNote" Text="Save Note" runat="server"
OnClick="btnSaveNote_Click"
/><br />
<TextArea id="txtNoteText" cols="80" rows="30" runat="server" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
Sometimes it's the little things in life that can make your day. Is this little application going to solve all your problems? No. Will it quickly and easily record notes and let you access them from anywhere? It might... you just need to use it.
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