Being application developers that use Visual Studio, we need a way to access and work with these extended database properties from our applications. In order to demonstrate how we can access these extended properties, the following code examples use a class library project that hosts a test fixture.

If you need to engage in this sort of work, you will likely want to make your application configurable with the current database property values. For example, if your application is configured to work against version 2.0 and the database is stamped as version 1.0, you will likely want to throw an exception. The last thing you will want to do is hard code the database version into your application. Fortunately, we have the System.Configuration class that can be used to configure your application. In this case, the application is a simple test fixture that contains a few tests. In order to make the application configurable, we need the following:

app.config file with necessary configuration section
configuration class
The app.config file handles two things:

Defines the configuration section (in this case, the section is named SQLExtendedProperties)
Creates the relationship between the configuration section and the configuration class
If you are new to system configurations, check out ASP MVC Team Member Phil Haack’s blog post on the topic: http://haacked.com/archive/2007/03/12/custom-configuration-sections-in-3-easy-steps.aspx.

In this example, the application is configured to work with version 1.0.0. Also note that in the configuration, OLE-DB connection string information is associated with the version property. If you are thinking that we could have different configuration sections for test, debug and production, you are 100% correct and on the right track!

The SQLExtendedProperties class provides a structured class around the SQLExtendedProperties configuration section. List1 illustrates four helper methods that are used to add, update, query and remove an extended property.

The code outlined in List 1 is nothing more than wrapping around ADO.NET and our application configuration. The application configuration is used to drive which database server is used. In addition, the application configuration specifies which database version is appropriate to interact with our application. List2 puts it all together in a series of unit and integration tests that verifies the SQL Server Extended Property Functionality.

List 1:

private static void ExtendedPropertTest(SqlConnection local_conn,
 string PropertyName)
 {
using 
(var _command = 
  new SqlCommand("sys.sp_ExtendedPropertTest",local_conn))
 {
 _command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
 SqlCommandBuilder.DeriveParameters(_command);
 _command.Parameters["@name"].Value = PropertyName;
 _command.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
}
 
 
private static string GetExtendedPropertyValue(SqlConnection
 local_conn, string PropertyName)
{
 string _version;
using 
(var _command =
 new SqlCommand(String.Format("select value from
      sys.extended_properties where name = '{0}'", PropertyName),
   _  connection))
{
 var _reader = _command.ExecuteReader();
 _reader.Read();
 _version = _reader.GetString(0);
 _reader.Close();
 return _version;
}
}
 
 
private static void AddExtendedProperty(SqlConnection local_conn,
 string PropertyName)
{
var _command = new SqlCommand("sys.sp_addextendedproperty",
 local_conn);
 _command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
 
SqlCommandBuilder.DeriveParameters(_command);
 
 _command.Parameters["@name"].Value = PropertyName;
 _command.Parameters["@value"].Value =
 SQLExtendedProperties.LoadBySectionName().version;
 
 _command.ExecuteNonQuery();
 
}
 
 
private static void UpdateExtendedProperty(SqlConnection
 connection, string PropertyName, string PropertyValue)
 {
 using (var _command = new
 SqlCommand("sys.sp_updateextendedproperty", local_conn))
{
 _command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
 SqlCommandBuilder.DeriveParameters(_command);
 _command.Parameters["@name"].Value = PropertyName;
 _command.Parameters["@value"].Value = PropertyValue;
 _command.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
 
} 
 
private static SqlConnection GetConnection()
 {
var local_conn = new
SqlConnection(SQLExtendedProperties.LoadBySectionName().connection);
 local_conn.Open();
 return local_conn;
}
 
List 2:
 
[Test]
public void can_retrieve_version_value_from_config_file()
{
  var _version = SQLExtendedProperties.LoadBySectionName().version;
  Assert.AreEqual("1.0.0", _version);
}
 
 [Test]
public void can_open_and_close_dblocal_conn()
{
  var local_conn = GetConnection();
  Assert.AreEqual(ConnectionState.Open, local_conn.State);
 
  local_conn.Close();
  Assert.AreEqual(ConnectionState.Closed, local_conn.State);
 }
 
 [Test]
public void can_create_extended_property()
{
  var local_conn = GetConnection();
  AddExtendedProperty(local_conn, "Version");
 
  Assert.AreEqual(SQLExtendedProperties.LoadBySectionName().version,
   GetExtendedPropertyValue(local_conn,"Version"));
 
  ExtendedPropertTest(local_conn,"Version");
 
  local_conn.Close();
 
}
 
 [Test]
public void can_update_extended_property()
{
 var local_conn = GetConnection();
 
 AddExtendedProperty(local_conn, "Version");
 
 UpdateExtendedProperty(local_conn, "Version","2.0.0");
 
 Assert.AreEqual("2.0.0", GetExtendedPropertyValue(local_conn, 
  "Version"));
 
ExtendedPropertTest(local_conn, "Version");
 
local_conn.Close();
 
}

Hope this helps

Adobe Dreamweaver templates are one of the most powerful development aids that the program contains. Basically, a template is a master design which can be copied repeatedly to generate an limitless number of web pages each one containing the same shared elements. Obviously, each time the template generates a new page, the page can be customised and the requisite elements added to it to make it unique. This is achieved by a technique of locked page regions and editable regions.

When the template is applied to a page, locked regions cannot be modified. (You have to return to the template to modify them.) Only the areas of the page designated as editable regions can have content added to them.

To create editable regions on the template, you simply position the cursor in the required area of your layout and choose Insert – Template Objects – Editable Region. Enter a name for the region and click OK. One frequent problem experienced by new users of Dreamweaver is the accidental placement of and editable region inside a heading or paragraph tag. This means that when the template is applied to a page, only text can be placed in the editable region. To remedy this problem, return to the template, click in the editable region and examine the Tag Selector on the left of the Status bar. Having located the offending tag (usually h1, h2, p, etc.), right-click on it and choose Remove Tag from the context menu.

To associate an existing page with a template, open the page and choose Modify – Templates – Apply Template to Page. Next, double-click on the name of the template to be applied. Strangely enough, there is no Dreamweaver command that enables you to apply a template to several pages at once. However, here are two suggestions for applying a template to multiple pages reasonably quickly.

Begin by selecting multiple pages in the Files panel using the classic techniques of Shift-click or Control-click (Command-click on a Mac). Then, you can right-click one of the selected files and choose Open from the context menu to open all of them. Next, activate the Assets panel (Window – Assets) and click on the Templates button (the second icon from the bottom). Finally, drag the icon of the required template onto each of the open pages. To speed up the process, use Control-Tab to switch from page to page.

To create a brand new page based on a template, choose New from the File menu and, when the New Document window appears, select the Page From Template option, click on the site that contains the template (It should already be highlighted.), then choose the template. To get the most benefit from a template, before clicking the Create button, make sure that the option “Update Page When Template Changes” is activated.