SiteMap, IFD/OnPremise and relative URLs

I don’t know if you've already faced this problem: When you develop a web page that you want displayed via the SiteMap Navigation, the URLs called are different depending whether you are in OnPremise or IFD mode.

In IFD, you get a URL like http://organization_name.domain.extension/ISV/default.aspx

In OnPremise, it will look like
http://organization_name.domain.extension/organization_name/ISV/default.aspx

I assume that you use the same URL to access both Dynamics CRM authentication mode.

Now, if you want to use relative URLs to load images, scripts or other (which are also contained in the ISV folder), you're facing a problem: how to use relative URLs to be valid for both IFD and OnPremise mode?

The simplest answer, which is often found on the forums, is: Use absolute URLs.

Certainly, but this is not very clean to use hard coded server names.

So I propose you my method. Maybe not the best but it does the job (even if, as we shall see, it still uses absolute URL).

In the code behind your ASP.Net page, create a new string property called BaseUrl.

In the Get accessor, write the following code:

public string BaseUrl
{
get
{
string baseUrl = string.Format("{0}://{1}",
Request.IsSecureConnection ? "https" : "http",
Request.Url.Host);

return baseUrl;
}
}



Then in the HTML content of your website, you can use the <% = BaseUrl %>wherever you want to reference relative URLs.

For example: 

<img src="<%= BaseUrl %>/ISV/MyImages/Image.gif" >


Well, it’s right, you still have an absolute URL in the source code of the page. But at least you do not have to worry about changing environments and authentication mode.

Note: If you need relative URLs on your scripts, you can replace the ".js" file by an ".aspx" file and perform the same manipulation as above.

Comments

Unknown said…
i don't understand why with the absolute URL we have to worry about changing environments.
Because we have the Orgname in parameter.

Like this :
sOrganisation = Request.QueryString["orgname"];
if (Request.Url.AbsoluteUri.Contains(sOrganisation))
{
//IFD
}
else
{
//OnPremise
}
September 22, 2009 at 3:32 PM
Unknown said…
oh forget !

it's work in javascript too , with the "ORG_UNIQUE_NAME" and document.location object.
September 22, 2009 at 3:36 PM
Tanguy said…
Well, some of my customers use both IFD and OnPremise accessing computer with DNS alias, so they always use an URL containing organization name...

In this case, you can't know if you are in IFD or OnPremise.

Moreover, it seems simpliest (at least to me) to use a property in code behind like I propose than replacing each potential control URL (image source, stylesheet and script file reference) in code behind or even in embedded javascript.
September 23, 2009 at 9:20 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New XrmToolBox plugin : Import/Export NN relationships

Image
Two plugins in one day! wow! This one was, in fact, developed a couple of months ago. One of my colleague was using a solution from my fellow MVP Andrii Butenko which allows to import/export NN relationships in a silverlight web resource. This was nice but my colleague was using other attributes than primary key to do the mapping and Andrii’s solution does not support this. So he asked me to develop a XrmToolBox’s plugin that could do this. And, here it is! You can select entities and relationships and moreover, choose mapping attributes on both enitities. I only let text and number attributes selectable as other does not really make sense for mapping purposes. Then you can import or export NN relationships! Here is a preview As usual, this plugin, among other, is available with XrmToolBox on CodePlex
Read more

Searchable Propery Attribute Updater

Image
Hi, The previous post was not the last one... :) You can find in this post the first tool that will make your life easier: Just remember when you customer asked you to remove all these unused attributes form the attribute list of the advanced find form... You navigated through all attrbutes form to modify the Searchable property of each attributes for hours... (maybe am I exaggerating a bit...) The program I give you allows you to update all attributes in a single winform application! Yes it can be! Do not hesitate to give me your comments about this program if you think improvements can be done... Download:
Read more

Full featured CRM grid in HTML/JS

Image
In last December, I was asked to write a web resource to display a grid with CRM records. I was quite frustrated because I didn’t succeed to manage some grid features easily like fixed header with horizontal scrolling among others. I delivered a fixed table which was not so bad but absolutely not something that look like the application grid views. So I decided to work harder to find a way to do this CRM style grid view. After some works (almost two full days), I have succeeded to create a full featured CRM grid view by using only JavaScript. Here is a screenshot: And this is how I can create a grid view from only a div in a HTML page < html > < head > < title > Page de test </ title > < script src ="json2.js"></ script > < script src ="jquery.js"></ script > < script src ="XrmServiceToolKit.js"></ script > < script src ="sdk.metadata.js"></ script > ...
Read more