Typescript

Pass ASP.NET Core Appsettings Values to Angular via an API Call

There have been a few issues opened on the repo I have showing usage of Angular, Identity Server 4, and ASP.NET Core together that related to incompatibilities with the newer versions of Angular. In an effort to fix this issue the plan was to recreate the client application using the new Angular template from Microsoft which from what I read should address the issue.

The code before any changes can be found here, but in this case, the whole client application has been recreated so the starting point may not be super helpful.

The Problem

For the most part, this worked well, but the problem can when I needed to use some configuration values from ASP.NET Core in my new Angular application. The previous versions of the template used server-side rendering which I utilized to pass the configuration values. The new template doesn’t use server-side rendering by default and I wanted to find a way to solve the issue without requiring server-side rendering.

The other issue is that I want to be able to run this application in Azure and set the configuration values as environment variables. While Angular seems to have support for environment files finding a solution that used a systems environment variables turned out too not be simple.

Configuration API Endpoint

Since the configuration values I need to get to the client application are secret I decided to go the route of pulling them via an API call back to the same ASP.NET Core application that is hosting the Angular Application, which is the Client App project in the sample solution.

I added a ConfigurationController.cs class to the Controller directory with the following contents.

[Produces("application/json")]
[Route("api/Configuration")]
public class ConfigurationController : Controller
{
    private readonly IConfiguration _configuration;

    public ConfigurationController(IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        _configuration = configuration;
    }

    [HttpGet("[action]")]
    public IActionResult ConfigurationData()
    {
        return Ok(new Dictionary<string, string>
        {
            { "IdentityServerAddress", _configuration["IdentityServerAddress"] },
            { "ApiAddress", _configuration["ApiAddress"] }
        });
    }
}

This controller gets constructed with a reference to the application’s configuration which is then used to populate a dictionary with the values my Angular application needs. For completeness, the following is the contents of the application’s appsettings.json file.

{
  "Logging": {
    "LogLevel": {
      "Default": "Warning"
    }
  },
  "IdentityServerAddress": "http://localhost:5000",
  "ApiAddress": "http://localhost:5001/api/"
}

Angular Changes

This is the part that I really struggled to get right. I needed the configuration values from the API above to be available as soon as possible. Thankfully I came across this blog post by Juri Strumpflohner which covers using Angular’s APP_INITIALIZER.

The first thing I need was to create a class in Angular to get the configuration values from the API and serve to them the rest of the Angular application. To do this I added a configuration.service.ts into a new ClientApp/src/app/configuration directory. The full class follows.

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { HttpClient } from '@angular/common/http';

@Injectable()
export class ConfigurationService {

  private configuration: IServerConfiguration;

  constructor(private http: HttpClient) { }

  loadConfig() {
    return this.http.get<IServerConfiguration>('/api/Configuration/ConfigurationData')
      .toPromise()
      .then(result => {
        this.configuration = <IServerConfiguration>(result);
      }, error => console.error(error));
  }

  get apiAddress() {
    return this.configuration.ApiAddress;
  }

  get identityServerAddress() {
    return this.configuration.IdentityServerAddress;
  }

}

export interface IServerConfiguration {
  ApiAddress: string;
  IdentityServerAddress: string;
}

This class hits the API to get the configuration values in the loadConfig function and maps it to a class level field. It also provides properties to get the individual configuration values.

As I mentioned above, getting the application to get these configuration values in a timely matter was something I really struggled to do. The first step to using Angular’s APP_INITIALIZER to solve this issue is to change the import from @angular/core to include APP_INITIALIZER and to import the ConfigurationService.  All these changes are being made in the app.module.ts file.

import { NgModule, APP_INITIALIZER } from '@angular/core';
import { ConfigurationService } from "./configuration/configuration.service";

Next, we need to define a function that will call the ConfigurationService.loadConfig function.

const appInitializerFn = (appConfig: ConfigurationService) => {
  return () => {
    return appConfig.loadConfig();
  };
};

Finally, in the providers array add an element for the APP_INITIALIZER and the ConfigurationService.

providers: [
  ConfigurationService,
  {
    provide: APP_INITIALIZER,
    useFactory: appInitializerFn,
    multi: true,
    deps: [ConfigurationService]
  }]

 Wrapping Up

This is one of those things that turned out to be way more complicated than I expected. Thankfully with the above changes, I was able to get it working. I hope this saves you all some time. The code with all the changes can be found here.

Pass ASP.NET Core Appsettings Values to Angular via an API Call Read More »

Identity Server: Upgrade Client to Angular 5

I have been working a lot on my basics sample project to explore some new client-side frameworks (React and Vue if you are interested). Since I have been away from the Identity Server sample for a while I thought it would be good to see what updates the project might need. It turns out that Angular was the big thing that was out of date. This post is going to cover the changes to get the project updated to Angular 5.

Package.json

In the Client App project open the package.json file and update the version of the @angular packages to at least the following version, and of course feel free to pin the exact version. I don’t just because of the nature of this sample.

"@angular/animations": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/common": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/compiler": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/compiler-cli": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/core": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/forms": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/http": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/platform-browser": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/platform-browser-dynamic": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/platform-server": "^5.0.0",
"@angular/router": "^5.0.0"

At this point, I tried to run and got an error about the version of rxjs being used. Instead of just blindly going package by package and seeing which versions were required I installed the Angular CLI and created a new Angular 5 application and used it as an example of what version I needed. Use the following commands if you would like to follow the same process since the current versions have changed by the time you are reading this post.

npm install -g @angular/cli
ng new sample-app

The above led me to the following version changes.

"rxjs": "^5.5.2",
"zone.js": "^0.8.14"

Attempt 2

At this point, I tried running the application again and received the following error.

Error: Version of @angular/compiler-cli needs to be 2.3.1 or greater. Current version is “5.0.1”.

As you can imagine I was surprised that 5.0.1 < 2.3.1. Turns out this is related to the version of @ngtools/webpack. This package deals with ahead-of-time compiling which my sample application uses, but the application I generated using the Angular CLI doesn’t. Updating to the following version cleared up the issue.

"@ngtools/webpack": "^1.8.0"

Open ID Connect Client

There was a much new version of the Open ID Connect Client that the Angular application is using so I upgrade it as well to the following version.

"angular-auth-oidc-client": "3.0.4"

This version dropped the startup_route so the following line had to be removed from the AuthService class.

openIdImplicitFlowConfiguration.startup_route = '/home';

Final Steps

Now that the package versions are sorted run the following commands from a command prompt to make sure that all the new version are installed and in the proper places.

npm install
node node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js --config webpack.config.vendor.js
node node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js

Wrapping Up

I am glad to have this upgrade done. It seems that every time I do one of these upgrades I end up down some rabbit hole. On the plus side, I seem to be getting faster at resolving the rabbit hole issues, or the frameworks have made a lot of progress on making sure the upgrade processes are simpler than they used to be. Either way, I get to expand my knowledge. I just need to schedule a bit more time before attempting upgrades.

The code in its finished state can be found here.

Identity Server: Upgrade Client to Angular 5 Read More »

Vue: Contact Detail

Last week’s post covered adding a Vue project to the ASP.NET Core Basics example solution. This post is going to cover adding a read-only view of a contact’s detail to being the Vue sample a step closer to being in line with the Angular, Aurelia and React samples. The code before any changes can be found here.

Contact Class

The Contact interface in the contactlist.ts file should be deleted. Add a contact.ts file to the ClientApp/components/contacts/ directory. This will hold the replacement for the interface we just deleted. The full class definition follows.

export class Contact {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    address: string;
    city: string;
    state: string;
    postalCode: string;
    phone: string;
    email: string;

    constructor(data?: any) {
        if (data == null) return;
        (<any>Object).assign(this, data);
    }

    getAddress(): string {
        return `${this.address} ${this.city}, ${this.state} ${this.postalCode}`;
    }

}

This class is very simple and will be used later to show how a function call can be used as part of a view.

Contact Service

Since the application will now have two places that need to access the ASP.NET Core API lets to refactor the API access into a service. This is the same style used by the Aurelia, Angular and React applications. Add a contactService.ts file to the contacts directory. The service will provide functions to get all contacts or a single contact an ID. The following is the full class.

import { Contact } from './contact';

export class ContactService {
    private baseUrl = 'http://localhost:13322/api/contactsApi/';

    getAll(): Promise<Contact[]> {
        return fetch(this.baseUrl)
            .then(response => response.json() as Promise<Contact[]>)
            .then(contacts => Array.from(contacts, c => new Contact(c)));
    }

    getById(id: string): Promise<Contact> {
        return fetch(`${this.baseUrl}${id}`)
            .then(response => response.json())
            .then(contact => new Contact(contact));
    }
}

Now the API access in the ContactListComponent can be refactored to use the service. First, add imports for contact and service.

import { Contact } from './contact';
import { ContactService } from './contactService';

Next, replace the fetch call with a service call.

Before:
fetch('http://localhost:13322/api/contactsApi/')
    .then(response => response.json() as Promise<Contact[]>)

After:
let contactService = new ContactService();
contactService.getAll()

Contact Detail Component

Add a contactDetail.ts which will be the backing component for the contact detail view. The following is the full class. Pretty much all it is doing is using get contact service to get contact detail by ID when it is mounted.

import Vue from 'vue';
import { Component, Prop } from 'vue-property-decorator';
import { Contact } from './contact';
import { ContactService } from './contactService';

@Component
export default class ContactDetailComponent extends Vue {
    contact: Contact = new Contact();
    @Prop() id: string;

    mounted() {
        let contactService = new ContactService();
        contactService.getById(this.id)
            .then(data => {
                this.contact = data;
            });
    }
}

Now add a contactDetail.vue.html file for the UI bits of the contact detail. This is basically just HTML with the same binding syntax as before. Notice that the binding of address is a function call. The other Vue things to note are that the details will only show if contact is truthy using the v-if.

<template>
    <div>
        <h1>Contact Details</h1>
        <hr />
        <div v-if="contact">
            <dl class="dl-horizontal">
                <dt>ID</dt>
                <dd>{{ contact.id }}</dd>
                <dt>Name</dt>
                <dd>{{ contact.name }}</dd>
                <dt>Address</dt>
                <dd>{{ contact.getAddress() }}</dd>
                <dt>Phone</dt>
                <dd>{{ contact.phone }}</dd>
                <dt>Email</dt>
                <dd>{{ contact.email }}</dd>
            </dl>
        </div>
        <router-link to="/contactlist">Back to List</router-link>
        <hr />
    </div>
</template>

<script src="./contactDetail.ts"></script>

Routing with a Parameter

Finding the proper way to route with at parameter in Vue was not easy. The way it is done has evolved over time making find the right way a little challenging. The first step is to add a route for the contact detail by adding a new item to the routes array in the boot.ts file.

{ path: '/contactdetail/:id', component: require('./components/contacts/contactDetail.vue.html'), props: true }

The :id in the path denotes a parameter. The props: true bit is also key to getting the ID when in the contact detail component. The contactlist.vue.html needs to be updated to link to the contact detail route.

Before:
<td>{{ contact.id }}</td>

After:
<td>
  <router-link :to="'/contactdetail/' +  contact.id">{{ contact.id }}
  </router-link>
</td>

Finally, in the ContactDetailComponent we need to use the ID. To do so we need an import to allow the use of the Prop decorator.

import { Component, Prop } from 'vue-property-decorator';

Now all that is needed is to apply the decorator to a property of the class that matches the name of the parameter in the route.

@Prop() id: string;

Now the ID can be used to get the proper contact from the contact service. The following is code that was already shown, but the full context of how the prop decorator is used is important so I am repeating it here.

@Component
export default class ContactDetailComponent extends Vue {
    contact: Contact = new Contact();
    @Prop() id: string;

    mounted() {
        let contactService = new ContactService();
        contactService.getById(this.id)
            .then(data => {
                this.contact = data;
            });
    }
}

Wrapping Up

This brings the projects one step closer to being on the same level feature-wise. Look for one more post to get the Vue project features lined up with the other samples in the solution.

Keep in mind that this is my first look at Vue and my examples may or may not be idiomatic.

The code in a finished state can be found here.

Vue: Contact Detail Read More »

ASP.NET Core Basics: Vue with an API

In the past, I have done some exploration on Aurelia, Angular and React via the ASP.NET Core Basics series. This post is going to take a similar approach using Vue. The code for the project will be in the same repo as the previous basics examples and will be utilizing the same API to pull data. The code before adding the Vue project can be found here.

Project Creation

There is not a template for Vue built into Visual Studio, but there is a set of templates that can be used via the .NET CLI with the dotnet new that includes Vue (as well as Aurelia and Knockout). A full list of available templates can be found here. The template we need is Microsoft.AspNetCore.SpaTemplates and can be installed using the following command from a command prompt.

dotnet new -i "Microsoft.AspNetCore.SpaTemplates::*"

Create a Vue folder at the same level as the other projects, for the samples this would be in the src folder. In the command prompt navigate to the src/Vue/ directory. Run the following command to create the Vue project.

dotnet new vue

After the project generation completes run the following to get the needed npm packages installed.

npm  install

The last step is to get the new project added to the existing solution. Navigate the command prompt to your solution file. For the sample project, this is the root of the repo. Then run the following command (this could also be done through Visual Studio instead of using the CLI).

dotnet sln add src/Vue/Vue.csproj

Adding the Contact List

In the ClientApp/components directory add a new contacts directory to house all the awesome contact related functionality we will be adding. Next, add a new contactlist.ts. To this new file add the interface which defines what a Contact looks like.

interface Contact {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    address: string;
    city: string;
    state: string;
    postalCode: string;
    phone: string;
    email: string;
}

Above the contact interface, add the following imports needed to create a Vue component.

import Vue from 'vue';
import { Component } from 'vue-property-decorator';

Finally, add the contact list component. This component maintains a list of contacts which gets filled from our existing API when the component is mounted (see the docs for more information on Vue’s lifecycle hooks).

@Component
export default class ContactListComponent extends Vue {
    contacts: Contact[] = [];

    mounted() {
        fetch('http://localhost:13322/api/contactsApi/')
            .then(response => response.json() as Promise<Contact[]>)
            .then(data => {
                this.contacts = data;
            });
    }
}

The following if the full component just to provide full context.

import Vue from 'vue';
import { Component } from 'vue-property-decorator';

@Component
export default class ContactListComponent extends Vue {
    contacts: Contact[] = [];

    mounted() {
        fetch('http://localhost:13322/api/contactsApi/')
            .then(response => response.json() as Promise<Contact[]>)
            .then(data => {
                this.contacts = data;
            });
    }
}

interface Contact {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    address: string;
    city: string;
    state: string;
    postalCode: string;
    phone: string;
    email: string;
}

Next up is the UI for this contact list component. In the same directory add contactlist.vue.html.  The following is the full file.

<template>
    <div>
        <h1>Contact List</h1>
        <table v-if="contacts.length" class="table">
            <thead>
            <tr>
                <th>ID</th>
                <th>Name</th>
            </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
            <tr v-for="contact in contacts">
                <td>{{ contact.id }}</td>
                <td>{{ contact.name }}</td>
            </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>

        <p v-else><em>Loading...</em></p>
    </div>
</template>

<script src="./contactlist.ts"></script>

All of the above is pretty straightforward. All the Vue specific items have a v- prefix.

Add the Contact List to Navigation

The last bit needed to have a working contact list is adding it to navigation so the user can get to the list. The routes are defined in the boot.ts file in the routes array. Add the following line to the array to handle our contact list.

{ path: '/contactlist', component: require('./components/contacts/contactlist.vue.html') }

Now that the router knows to handle the contact list it needs to be added to the navigation UI. Open the /navmenu/navmenu.vue.html file and find the unordered list that is the navigation menu. Add a new list item to provide a link to the contact list.

<li>
    <router-link to="/contactlist">
        <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-list-alt"></span> Contact List
    </router-link>
</li>

Wrapping Up

Vue reminds me a lot of Aurelia in its simplicity so far which is awesome. Look for the same progression of posts for Vue that happened with React over the last few weeks.

The code in its final state can be found here.

ASP.NET Core Basics: Vue with an API Read More »

React: Form for Contact Add

Last week’s post covered adding a read-only view of a contact’s details. As before the goal is to get the React project’s features in line with the Aurelia and Angular samples. This week we will be adding a form to all addition of a new contact. The code before any changes can be found here.

Contact List

On the contact list page, we need to add a link to create a contact. This will be added just after the header in the ContactList.tsx file.

<h1>Contact List</h1>
<Link to={'contactdetail'}>Create New Contact</Link>

Routing

In order to stay in line with the other sample, the ContactDetail component is going to be handling both the read-only view and the view to add a contact. This means the ID that is currently part of the contact detail needs to be optional. The following is the change to make ID optional by adding a question mark.

Before:
<Route path='/contactdetail/:id' component={ContactDetail} />

After:
<Route path='/contactdetail/:id?' component={ContactDetail} />

Contact Service

In the ContactService class, we need to add a save function. This new function will make a post request to the contacts API and return the new contact with the ID from the API to the caller.

save(contact: Contact): Promise<Contact> {
    return fetch(this.baseUrl,
            {
                method: 'post',
                headers: {
                    'Accept': 'application/json',
                    'Content-Type': 'application/json' 
                },
                body: JSON.stringify(contact)
            })
        .then(response => response.json())
        .then(contact => new Contact(contact));
}

Contact Detail

The ContactDetail class is where most of the changes are. I had some trouble getting React’s forms to work directly with the instance of the contact class and ended up just storing the parts of a contact directly in state instead of as an object. I expect this is a failure on my part and not an issue with React. I may revisit this in the future. Below is the new structure of the state used by contact details.

interface ContactDetailState {
    id: string;
    name: string;
    address: string;
    city: string;
    state: string;
    postalCode: string;
    phone: string;
    email: string;
    loading: boolean;
    redirect: boolean;
}

Next, the constructor needed to be changed to handle the new state structure and to handle being called without an ID.

constructor(props: any) {
    super();

    if (props.match.params.id == undefined) {
        this.state = {
            id: props.match.params.id,
            name: '', address: '', city: '',
            state: '', postalCode: '', phone: '',
            email: '',
            loading: false,
            redirect: false
        };
    }
    else {
        this.state = {
            id: props.match.params.id,
            name: '', address: '', city: '',
            state: '', postalCode: '', phone: '',
            email: '',
            loading: true,
            redirect: false
        };

        let contactService = new ContactService();
        contactService.getById(this.state.id)
            .then(data => {
                this.setState({
                    name: data.name, address: data.address, city: data.city,
                    state: data.state, postalCode: data.postalCode, phone: data.phone,
                    email: data.email,
                    loading: false
                });
            });
    }
}

Again, this is way more code than it would be the contact class were being used. Next, the render function needs to be adjusted to render the UI for the read-only view or the contact creation. The decision is based on the ID being set or undefined.

public render() {
    let contents = this.state.loading
        ? <p><em>Loading...</em></p>
        : this.state.id != undefined &&
          !this.state.redirect
            ? this.renderExistingContact()
            : this.renderNewContact();

    return <div>
        <h1>Contact Detail</h1>
        <hr />
        {contents}
        <NavLink to={'/contactlist'}>Back to List</NavLink>
        <hr />
    </div>;
}

The render of an existing contact needs to be changed to use state instead of an instance of a contact.

private renderExistingContact() {
    return <dl className="dl-horizontal">
        <dt>ID</dt>
        <dd>{this.state.id}</dd>
        <dt>Name</dt>
        <dd>{this.state.name}</dd>
        <dt>Address</dt>
        <dd>{this.state.address} {this.state.city}, {this.state.state} {this.state.postalCode}</dd>
        <dt>Phone</dt>
        <dd>{this.state.phone}</dd>
        <dt>Email</dt>
        <dd>{this.state.email}</dd>
    </dl>;
}

The following is the render of the add contact UI. I will call out a couple of parts after. The bulk of the code is just rending of the form.

    private renderNewContact() {
        return (
            <div>
                {this.state.redirect && <Redirect to={`/contactdetail/${this.state.id}`}/>}
                <form role="form" className="form-horizontal" onSubmit={(e: any) => this.handleSubmit(e)}>
                    <div className="form-group">
                        <label className="col-sm-2 control-label">Name</label>
                        <div className="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="text" placeholder="name" className="form-control" name="name" value={this.state.name} onChange={(e: any) => this.handleChange(e)} />
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div className="form-group">
                        <label className="col-sm-2 control-label">Address</label>
                        <div className="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="text" placeholder="address" className="form-control" name="address" value={this.state.address} onChange={(e: any) => this.handleChange(e)} />
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div className="form-group">
                        <label className="col-sm-2 control-label">City</label>
                        <div className="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="text" placeholder="city" className="form-control" name="city" value={this.state.city} onChange={(e: any) => this.handleChange(e)} />
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div className="form-group">
                        <label className="col-sm-2 control-label">State</label>
                        <div className="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="text" placeholder="state" className="form-control" name="state" value={this.state.state} onChange={(e: any) => this.handleChange(e)} />
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div className="form-group">
                        <label className="col-sm-2 control-label">Zip</label>
                        <div className="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="text" placeholder="zip" className="form-control" name="postalCode" value={this.state.postalCode} onChange={(e: any) => this.handleChange(e)} />
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div className="form-group">
                        <label className="col-sm-2 control-label">Phone</label>
                        <div className="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="text" placeholder="phone" className="form-control" name="phone" value={this.state.phone} onChange={(e: any) => this.handleChange(e)} />
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div className="form-group">
                        <label className="col-sm-2 control-label">Email</label>
                        <div className="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="email" placeholder="email" className="form-control" name="email" value={this.state.email} onChange={(e: any) => this.handleChange(e)} />
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div className="text-center">
                        <button className="btn btn-success btn-lg" type="submit">Save</button>
                        <button className="btn btn-danger btn-lg" onClick={() => this.reset()}>Reset</button>
                    </div >
                </form>
            </div>
        );
    }

The following is the input for the contact’s name.

<input type="text" placeholder="name" className="form-control" name="name" value={this.state.name} onChange={(e: any) => this.handleChange(e)} />

Since I decided to go with the controlled component route React will be responsible for being the source of truth, not the form its self. To accomplish this it is important that the input has a name and an onChange event handler set up. The following is the handleChange function which uses the name from the on change event to update the proper property in the component’s state.

private handleChange(event: any): void {
    const target = event.target;
    const value = target.value;
    const name = target.name;

    this.setState({ [name]: value });
}

The following line is the reset button which will reset the state to blank out all the fields in the form.

<button className=”btn btn-danger btn-lg” onClick={() => this.reset()}>Reset</button>

The reset function just uses setState to blank out all the fields.

private reset() {
    this.setState({
        name: '', address: '', city: '',
        state: '', postalCode: '', phone: '',
        email: ''
    });
}

Not surprisingly the submit button triggers a submit of the form. What happens on submit is defined in the opening form tag.

<form role="form" className="form-horizontal" onSubmit={(e: any) => this.handleSubmit(e)}>

The handleSubmit function takes the contact information in state and uses it to create a new instance of a Contact which is then passed to the ContactService to be saved. The service returns a new contact object from the server and the ID is stored to state.

handleSubmit(event: any): void {
    event.preventDefault();

    let contact = new Contact();
    contact.name = this.state.name;
    contact.address = this.state.address;
    contact.city = this.state.city;
    contact.state = this.state.state;
    contact.postalCode = this.state.postalCode;
    contact.phone = this.state.phone;
    contact.email = this.state.email;

    let contactService = new ContactService();
    contactService.save(contact)
        .then(c => this.setState({ id: String(c.id) }));

    if (this.state.id) {
        this.setState({ redirect: true });
    }
}

If the server does return an ID for the new contact then the redirect is set to true. Then will case the following code to run in renderNewContact which will redirect the user back to the read-only view of the new contact.

{this.state.redirect && <Redirect to={`/contactdetail/${this.state.id}`}/>}

Wrapping Up

This pretty much gets the React application in line with the Aurelia and Angular sample applications. It has been fun getting a handle on the very, very basics of React. While I am back in the basics sample projects I may go ahead and tackle a Vue sample next.

The finished code can be found here.

React: Form for Contact Add Read More »

React: Contact Detail

Last week’s post covered adding a React project to the ASP.NET Core Basics solution. As I stated last week the goal is to get the React project’s features in line with the Aurelia and Angular samples. This week we will be adding a read-only view of a contact’s details. The code before any changes can be found here.

Contact Class

The Contact interface in the ContactList.tsx should be deleted and in its please we will add a Contact class. As part of this change, I also moved the contact related items to a contact directory. Add a contact.ts file to the ClientApp/components/contacts/ directory with the following contents.

export class Contact {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    address: string;
    city: string;
    state: string;
    postalCode: string;
    phone: string;
    email: string;

    constructor(data?: any) {
        if (data == null) return;
        (<any>Object).assign(this, data);
    }

    getAddress(): string {
        return `${this.address} ${this.city}, ${this.state} ${this.postalCode}`;
    }

}

This class is very simple and will be used later to show how a function call can be used as part of rendering.

Contact Service

Since the application will now have two places that need to access the ASP.NET Core API I decided to refactor the API access behind a service. This is the same style used by the Aurelia and Angular applications. Add a contactService.ts file to the Contacts directory. The service will provide functions to get all contacts or a single contact using its ID. The following is the full class.

import 'isomorphic-fetch';
import { Contact } from './contact';

export class ContactService {

    private baseUrl = 'http://localhost:13322/api/contactsApi/';

    getAll(): Promise<Contact[]> {
        return fetch(this.baseUrl)
            .then(response => response.json() as Promise<Contact[]>)
            .then(contacts => Array.from(contacts, c => new Contact(c)));
    }

    getById(id: string): Promise<Contact> {
        return fetch(`${this.baseUrl}${id}`)
            .then(response => response.json())
            .then(contact => new Contact(contact));
    }

}

The final step in this refactor is to use the new service in the ContactList class. First, add imports for the service and Contact class.

import { Contact } from './contact';
import { ContactService } from './contactService';

Then, replace the fetch call with the service.

Before:
fetch('http://localhost:13322/api/contactsApi/')
    .then(response => response.json() as Promise<Contact[]>)

After:
let contactService = new ContactService();
contactService.getAll()

Contact Detail Component

Add a ContactDetail.tsx file which will be used to show the details of a contact including using the getAddress function of the Contact class. The following is the full contents of the file.

import * as React from 'react';
import { RouteComponentProps } from 'react-router';
import { Link, NavLink } from 'react-router-dom';
import 'isomorphic-fetch';
import { Contact } from './contact';
import { ContactService } from './contactService';

interface ContactDetailState {
    id: string;
    contact: Contact | undefined;
    loading: boolean;
}

export class ContactDetail extends React.Component<RouteComponentProps<{}>, ContactDetailState> {

    constructor(props: any) {
        super();
        this.state = { id: props.match.params.id, contact: undefined, loading: true };

        let contactService = new ContactService();
        contactService.getById(this.state.id)
            .then(data => {
                this.setState({ contact: data, loading: false });
            });
    }

    public render() {
        let contents = this.state.loading
            ? <p><em>Loading...</em></p>
            : this.state.contact
                ? ContactDetail.renderContactsTable(this.state.contact)
                : <p>No contacts</p>;

        return <div>
            <h1>Contact Detail</h1>
            <hr />
            {contents}
            <NavLink to={'/contactlist'}>Back to List</NavLink>
            <hr />
        </div>;
    }

    private static renderContactsTable(contact: Contact) {
        return <dl className="dl-horizontal">
                   <dt>ID</dt>
                   <dd>{contact.id}</dd>
                   <dt>Name</dt>
                   <dd>{contact.name}</dd>
                   <dt>Address</dt>
                   <dd>{contact.getAddress()}</dd>
                   <dt>Phone</dt>
                   <dd>{contact.phone}</dd>
                   <dt>Email</dt>
                   <dd>{contact.email}</dd>
               </dl>;
    }
}

This is all very similar to the things I have covered before. Now that we have a contact detail component we need a way to display it.

Routing with a Parameter

Import the contact detail in the route.tsx file.

import { ContactDetail } from './components/contacts/ContactDetail';

Next, add a route path for contact detail that expects an ID.

<Route path='/contactdetail/:id' component={ContactDetail} />

Back in the ContactList component change the ID to be a link to the new contact detail route using the ID of the contact.

Before:
<td>{contact.id}</td>

After:
<td><Link to={`contactdetail/${contact.id}`}>{contact.id}</Link></td>

The code for pulling the route parameter was in the ContactDetail component above, but I am going to show it again just so all the route with parameter information is together. The route parameters can be accessed using props.match.params.{parameter name} which in this case ends up being props.match.params.id. The following is the constructor of the ContactDetail component which is using a route parameter.

constructor(props: any) {
    super();
    this.state = { id: props.match.params.id, contact: undefined, loading: true };

    let contactService = new ContactService();
    contactService.getById(this.state.id)
        .then(data => {
            this.setState({ contact: data, loading: false });
        });
}

Wrapping Up

This brings the projects one step closer to being on the same level feature-wise. I expect at least one more post to get the project features lined up so make sure and keep a lookout for the next post.

Keep in mind that this is my first look at React and my examples may or may not be idiomatic. So far I am really enjoying working with React.

The code in a finished state can be found here.

React: Contact Detail Read More »

ASP.NET Core Basics: React with an API

In the past, I have done some exploration on Aurelia and Angular via the ASP.NET Core Basics series. This post is going to take a similar approach as I start doing some exploration with React. The code for the project will be in the same repo as the previous basics examples and will be utilizing the same API to pull data. The code before adding the React project can be found here.

This post is going to cover adding a React project to the existing using the React template that is now built into Visual Studio. The same thing can be accomplished using the .NET CLI so don’t feel like Visual Studio is required. The goal for the React project in this initial post will be to connect to the contacts API and download a list of contacts and render that to the screen. In future posts, I hope to expand this functionality to match that of the Aurelia and Angular projects.

Project Creation

Right-click and select Add > New Project.

In the Add New Project dialog select the ASP.NET Core Web Application. In the case of the sample, the project will be named React. Click OK to continue.

On the next screen make sure and select ASP.NET Core 2.0 and the React.js template. Then click OK.

The following is the resulting React project in the context of the full solution.

Next, make sure and run npm install from a command prompt in the React project’s directory to ensure all the npm packages get restored.

Adding the Contact List

Inside the ClientApp/components/ directory add a file name ContactList.tsx. TSX is the TypeScript version of the React JSX file type. The official docs on JSX can be found here. Since this is my first time working with React I took the FetchData.tsx file and copied the contents and used that as the starting point for my contact list. To lead with there is an interface for what should define a contact.

interface Contact {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    address: string;
    city: string;
    state: string;
    postalCode: string;
    phone: string;
    email: string;
}

Next, we have an interface for the state of this component with contains a loading flag and an array of contacts.

interface ContactListState {
    contacts: Contact[];
    loading: boolean;
}

In the constructor for the component is where the data is pulled from the API using fetch. The data from the API is then saved to the state of the component using the setState function.

constructor() {
    super();
    this.state = { contacts: [], loading: true };

    fetch('http://localhost:13322/api/contactsApi/')
        .then(response => response.json() as Promise<Contact[]>)
        .then(data => {
            this.setState({ contacts: data, loading: false });
        });
}

Next, the component has a function named renderContactsTable which takes an array of contacts and returns how they should be rendered. In this case, the contacts are rendered to a table that displays the contact ID and Name.

private static renderContactsTable(contacts: Contact[]) {
    return <table className='table'>
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <th>ID</th>
                <th>Name</th>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
            {contacts.map(contact =>
                <tr key={contact.id}>
                    <td>{contact.id}</td>
                    <td>{contact.name}</td>
                </tr>
            )}
        </tbody>
    </table>;
}

Finally, there is the render function. As you can guess this is what gets called to render the component. In this case, either “Loading” or the contact list gets displayed depending on if the contact list data has been loaded or not.

public render() {
    let contents = this.state.loading
        ? <p><em>Loading...</em></p>
        : ContactList.renderContactsTable(this.state.contacts);

    return <div>
        <h1>Contact List</h1>
        {contents}
    </div>;
}

The following is the full file for reference.

import * as React from 'react';
import { RouteComponentProps } from 'react-router';
import 'isomorphic-fetch';

interface ContactListState {
    contacts: Contact[];
    loading: boolean;
}

export class ContactList extends React.Component<RouteComponentProps<{}>, ContactListState> {
    constructor() {
        super();
        this.state = { contacts: [], loading: true };

        fetch('http://localhost:13322/api/contactsApi/')
            .then(response => response.json() as Promise<Contact[]>)
            .then(data => {
                this.setState({ contacts: data, loading: false });
            });
    }

    public render() {
        let contents = this.state.loading
            ? <p><em>Loading...</em></p>
            : ContactList.renderContactsTable(this.state.contacts);

        return <div>
            <h1>Contact List</h1>
            {contents}
        </div>;
    }

    private static renderContactsTable(contacts: Contact[]) {
        return <table className='table'>
            <thead>
                <tr>
                    <th>ID</th>
                    <th>Name</th>
                </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                {contacts.map(contact =>
                    <tr key={contact.id}>
                        <td>{contact.id}</td>
                        <td>{contact.name}</td>
                    </tr>
                )}
            </tbody>
        </table>;
    }
}

interface Contact {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    address: string;
    city: string;
    state: string;
    postalCode: string;
    phone: string;
    email: string;
}

Add Contact List to Navigation

Now that we have the contact list component it needs to be added to the navigation menu. The first step is to add it to the application’s router. This can be found in the routes.tsx file. The file is short so I am going to include the full content. Lines 7 and 13 are the ones added to handle our contact list.

import * as React from 'react';
import { Route } from 'react-router-dom';
import { Layout } from './components/Layout';
import { Home } from './components/Home';
import { FetchData } from './components/FetchData';
import { Counter } from './components/Counter';
import { ContactList } from './components/ContactList';

export const routes = <Layout>
    <Route exact path='/' component={Home} />
    <Route path='/counter' component={Counter} />
    <Route path='/fetchdata' component={FetchData} />
    <Route path='/contactlist' component={ContactList} />
</Layout>;

The last change is to add a navigation link to the NavMenu found in the NavMenu.tsx file. As I am sure most of us are used to adding an item to the nav menu is just adding a new li, but with the React specific NavLink bit.

<li>
  <NavLink to={'/contactlist'} activeClassName='active'>
      <span className='glyphicon glyphicon-th-list-alt'></span> Contact List
  </NavLink>
</li>

Wrapping Up

React is different than both Aurelia and Angular. Don’t take that as a good or bad thing. I don’t plan to pick on a side on the Angular vs React debate I just want to get a good feel for the different frameworks. So far the React experience has been pretty nice and I look forward to doing more exploration.

You can find the finished code for this post here.

ASP.NET Core Basics: React with an API Read More »

Pass ASP.NET Core Appsettings Values to Angular

As part of getting my set of Identity Server 4 sample applications to run in Azure, I needed a way in the Client Application to pass some configuration values from appsettings.json to the Angular front end that could be used both during server-side rendering and client-side rendering. This application is using JavaScriptServices. This solution may need tweaking if your application isn’t using JavaScriptServices. The code for the client application can be found here.

Settings

In this example, we need to pass the address of our Identity Server and API from appsettings.json to Angular. The following is the settings file for this example.

{
  "Logging": {
    "IncludeScopes": false,
    "Debug": {
      "LogLevel": {
        "Default": "Warning"
      }
    },
    "Console": {
      "LogLevel": {
        "Default": "Warning"
      }
    }
  },
  "IdentityServerAddress": "http://localhost:5000",
  "ApiAddress": "http://localhost:5001/"
}

Providing Configuration Data to Angular

In this application, Angular is loaded from the index action of the home controller. This view can be found in the Views/Home folder in the Index.cshtml file. The following is the file before any changes.

@{
    ViewData["Title"] = "Home Page";
}

<app asp-prerender-module="ClientApp/dist/main-server">Loading...</app>

<script src="~/dist/vendor.js" asp-append-version="true"></script>
@section scripts {
    <script src="~/dist/main-client.js" asp-append-version="true"></script>
}

The first change needed is to inject the configuration data using ASP.NET Core’s DI system. Add the following two lines at the top of the file.

@using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration
@inject IConfiguration Configuration

Now the configuration data from the application is available to this view. Next, we need to pull a couple of values out of the configuration data and pass it to the Angular application. To do this we are going to use the asp-prerender-data tag helper. You can read more about it in the official docs. The idea is you construct an object which is then serialized and stored in params.data. In our example, we are passing the URLs for the Identity and API Applications.

<app asp-prerender-module="ClientApp/dist/main-server"
     asp-prerender-data='new {
    apiUrl = Configuration["ApiAddress"],
    identityUrl = Configuration["IdentityServerAddress"]
}'>Loading...</app>

The above is creating a new object with an apiUrl property and an identityUrl property. The following is the full completed view for reference.

@using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration
@inject IConfiguration Configuration
@{
    ViewData["Title"] = "Home Page";
}

<app asp-prerender-module="ClientApp/dist/main-server"
     asp-prerender-data='new {
    apiUrl = Configuration["ApiAddress"],
    identityUrl = Configuration["IdentityServerAddress"]
}'>Loading...</app>

<script src="~/dist/vendor.js" asp-append-version="true"></script>
@section scripts {
    <script src="~/dist/main-client.js" asp-append-version="true"></script>
}

Angular Server-Side Boot

When Angular gets prerendered on the server-side it runs the code in the boot.server.ts file. This is where we will set up the providers needed on for the server side prerender. This is the bit that I missed for the longest time when trying to get this example going. I kept trying to find a way to add the providers in the app.module.server.ts file. Add any providers you need to the providers constant. For example, the following is passing URLs for an API and Identity Server in addition to the defaults provided by JavaScriptServices.

const providers = [
    { provide: INITIAL_CONFIG, useValue: { document: '<app></app>', url: params.url } },
    { provide: APP_BASE_HREF, useValue: params.baseUrl },
    { provide: 'BASE_URL', useValue: params.origin + params.baseUrl }
    { provide: 'API_URL', useValue: params.data.apiUrl },
    { provide: 'IDENTITY_URL', useValue: params.data.identityUrl }
];

Lower in the same file we can pass through the configuration values to the client side render as globals on the window object. To do this add a globals property to the object being passed to the resolve call.

return new Promise<RenderResult>((resolve, reject) => {
    zone.onError.subscribe((errorInfo: any) => reject(errorInfo));
    appRef.isStable.first(isStable => isStable).subscribe(() => {
        // Because 'onStable' fires before 'onError', we have to delay slightly before
        // completing the request in case there's an error to report
        setImmediate(() => {
            resolve({
                html: state.renderToString(),
                globals: {url_Config: params.data}
            });
            moduleRef.destroy();
        });
    });
});

The above will have the URLs as part of a single object, but you could have each URL as its own property if you prefer.

Angular Client-Side

Now that the server-side has providers for API URL and Identity URL we need to provide the client-side with the same capabilities. These changes will be in the app.module.browser.ts file. The first step is to add providers for each.

providers: [
    { provide: 'ORIGIN_URL', useFactory: getBaseUrl },
    { provide: 'API_URL', useFactory: apiUrlFactory },
    { provide: 'IDENTITY_URL', useFactory: identityUrlFactory },
    AppModuleShared
]

Next, we need functions to return the URLs from the url_Config property of the window object which the following two functions do.

export function apiUrlFactory() {
    return (window as any).url_Config.apiUrl;
}

export function identityUrlFactory() {
    return (window as any).url_Config.identityUrl;
}

Wrapping Up

With the above, you can now use your configuration values from ASP.NET Core and pass them through to your Angular application. In hindsight, the process is pretty simple, but getting to that point took me much longer to figure out than I would like to admit. I hope this post saves you some time!

Pass ASP.NET Core Appsettings Values to Angular Read More »

Identity Server: Changing Angular OpenID Connect Clients

Thanks to Andrew Stegmaier opening this issue on the repo that goes with my IdentityServer exploration I was made aware of a certified OpendID Connect client specifically written for Angular (4+). The angular-auth-oidc-client was created by damienbod. This post is going to cover the transition to this new client. The starting point of the code can be found here. All the changes discussed in this post take place in the ClientApp project.

Package Changes

In package.json the following changes need to be made using your package manager of choice or manually changing the fill and doing a restore.

Remove:
"oidc-client": "1.3.0",
"babel-polyfill": "6.23.0"

Add:
"angular-auth-oidc-client": "^1.3.1"

App Module Changes

Both app.module.client.ts and app.module.server.ts got a little cleanup to remove the duplicate provider code. The following lines were deleted from both files.

import { AuthService } from './components/services/auth.service';		
import { GlobalEventsManager } from './components/services/global.events.manager';		
import { AuthGuardService } from './components/services/auth-guard.service';

The providers array moved to using providers imported from app.module.shared.ts.

Before:
providers: [
    AuthService, AuthGuardService, GlobalEventsManager
]

After:
providers: [
    ...sharedConfig.providers
]

Next, in app.module.shared.ts the following imports were removed.

import { CallbackComponent } from './components/callback/callback.component';
import { GlobalEventsManager } from './components/services/global.events.manager';

Then, the following import for the OpenId Connect client was added.

import { AuthModule } from 'angular-auth-oidc-client';

In the declarations array CallbackComponent was removed. In the imports array AuthModule.forRoot() was added. The route for CallbackComponent was removed and the canActivate condition was removed from the fetch-data route. Finally, the providers section is reduced to only the AuthService. That was a lot of changes, so I am including the full finished class below.

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { RouterModule } from '@angular/router';

import { AppComponent } from './components/app/app.component'
import { NavMenuComponent } from './components/navmenu/navmenu.component';
import { HomeComponent } from './components/home/home.component';
import { FetchDataComponent } from './components/fetchdata/fetchdata.component';
import { CounterComponent } from './components/counter/counter.component';
import { UnauthorizedComponent } from './components/unauthorized/unauthorized.component';

import { AuthModule } from 'angular-auth-oidc-client';
import { AuthService } from './components/services/auth.service';

export const sharedConfig: NgModule = {
    bootstrap: [ AppComponent ],
    declarations: [
        AppComponent,
        NavMenuComponent,
        CounterComponent,
        FetchDataComponent,
        HomeComponent,
        UnauthorizedComponent
    ],
    imports: [
        AuthModule.forRoot(),
        RouterModule.forRoot([
            { path: '', redirectTo: 'home', pathMatch: 'full' },
            { path: 'home', component: HomeComponent },
            { path: 'unauthorized', component: UnauthorizedComponent },
            { path: 'counter', component: CounterComponent },
            { path: 'fetch-data', component: FetchDataComponent  },
            { path: '**', redirectTo: 'home' }
        ])
    ],
    providers: [ AuthService ]
};

File Deletions

The following files were completely removed. Some of them may come back in a different form, but for the moment the functions they were handling are being dealt with in a different way.

auth-guard.service.ts
callback.component.ts
global.events.manager.ts

Auth Service

The AuthService class was pretty much rewritten since it is at the core of the interaction with the OpenId Connect client. It still contains pretty much all the functionality as before just using the new client. The following is most of the class. I removed all of the HTTP calls except for get to save space.

import { Injectable, Component, OnInit, OnDestroy } from '@angular/core';
import { Http, Headers, RequestOptions, Response } from '@angular/http';
import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Rx';
import { Subscription } from 'rxjs/Subscription';

import { OidcSecurityService, OpenIDImplicitFlowConfiguration } from 'angular-auth-oidc-client';

@Injectable()
export class AuthService implements OnInit, OnDestroy {
    isAuthorizedSubscription: Subscription;
    isAuthorized: boolean;

    constructor(public oidcSecurityService: OidcSecurityService,
        private http: Http) {

        const openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration = new OpenIDImplicitFlowConfiguration();
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.stsServer = 'http://localhost:5000';

        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.redirect_url = 'http://localhost:5002/callback';
        // The Client MUST validate that the aud (audience) Claim contains its client_id value registered at the Issuer identified by the iss (issuer) Claim as an audience.
        // The ID Token MUST be rejected if the ID Token does not list the Client as a valid audience, or if it contains additional audiences not trusted by the Client.
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.client_id = 'ng';
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.response_type = 'id_token token';
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.scope = 'openid profile apiApp';
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.post_logout_redirect_uri = 'http://localhost:5002/home';
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.start_checksession = true;
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.silent_renew = true;
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.startup_route = '/home';
        // HTTP 403
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.forbidden_route = '/forbidden';
        // HTTP 401
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.unauthorized_route = '/unauthorized';
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.log_console_warning_active = true;
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.log_console_debug_active = false;
        // id_token C8: The iat Claim can be used to reject tokens that were issued too far away from the current time,
        // limiting the amount of time that nonces need to be stored to prevent attacks.The acceptable range is Client specific.
        openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration.max_id_token_iat_offset_allowed_in_seconds = 10;

        this.oidcSecurityService.setupModule(openIDImplicitFlowConfiguration);
    }

    ngOnInit() {
        this.isAuthorizedSubscription = this.oidcSecurityService.getIsAuthorized().subscribe(
            (isAuthorized: boolean) => {
                this.isAuthorized = isAuthorized;
            });

        if (window.location.hash) {
            this.oidcSecurityService.authorizedCallback();
        }
    }

    ngOnDestroy(): void {
        this.isAuthorizedSubscription.unsubscribe();
    }

    authorizedCallback() {
        this.oidcSecurityService.authorizedCallback();
    }

    getIsAuthorized(): Observable<boolean> {
        return this.oidcSecurityService.getIsAuthorized();
    }

    login() {
        console.log('start login');
        this.oidcSecurityService.authorize();
    }

    logout() {
        console.log('start logoff');
        this.oidcSecurityService.logoff();
    }

    get(url: string, options?: RequestOptions): Observable<Response> {
        if (options) {
            options = this.setRequestOptions(options);
        }
        else {
            options = this.setRequestOptions();
        }
        return this.http.get(url, options);
    }

    private setRequestOptions(options?: RequestOptions) {
        if (options) {
            this.appendAuthHeader(options.headers);
        }
        else {
            options = new RequestOptions({ headers: this.getHeaders(), body: "" });
        }
        return options;
    }

    private getHeaders() {
        let headers = new Headers();
        headers.append('Content-Type', 'application/json');
        this.appendAuthHeader(headers);
        return headers;
    }

    private appendAuthHeader(headers: Headers) {       
        const token = this.oidcSecurityService.getToken();

        if (token == '') return;

        const tokenValue = 'Bearer ' + token;
        headers.append('Authorization', tokenValue);
    }
}

It doesn’t show the best in the world here so be sure and check it out on GitHub. All the IdentityServer configuration is done in the constructor using the OpenIDImplicitFlowConfiguration class.

Navigation Component

The NavMenuComponent class now needs some changes to match the new AuthService. First, the following change to the imports.

Before:
import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { AuthService } from '../services/auth.service'
import { GlobalEventsManager } from '../services/global.events.manager'

After:
import { Component, OnInit, OnDestroy } from '@angular/core';
import { Subscription } from 'rxjs/Subscription';
import { AuthService } from '../services/auth.service';

The AuthService class now provides the ability to subscribe to changes in the user’s authorization. To handle the subscription and unsubscription the class will implement both OnInit and OnDestroy. Here is the new class declaration.

export class NavMenuComponent implements OnInit, OnDestroy

Next, here is the implementation of ngOnInit which handles the subscription to the change in isAuthorized.

ngOnInit() {
    this.isAuthorizedSubscription = 
            this.authService.getIsAuthorized().subscribe(
                   (isAuthorized: boolean) => {
                      this.isAuthorized = isAuthorized;
                    });

    if (window.location.hash) {
        this.authService.authorizedCallback();
    }
}

Then, ngOnDestroy handles the unsubscription.

ngOnDestroy(): void {
    this.isAuthorizedSubscription.unsubscribe();
}

The class level variable for _loggedIn is replaced with the following two variables.

isAuthorizedSubscription: Subscription;
isAuthorized: boolean;

The constructor has been greatly simplified and now only takes an instance of the AuthService.

constructor(public authService: AuthService) {
}

Finally, the login and logout functions have changed to match the new function names in the AuthService class.

public login() {
    this.authService.login();
}

public logout() {
    this.authService.logout();
}

Navigation Component UI

In the navmenu.component.html file, a couple of tweaks are required based on the new variable names used above. The first set is related to showing either Login or Logout.

Before:
<li *ngIf="!_loggedIn" [routerLinkActive]="['link-active']">
    <a (click)="login()" [routerLink]="['/login']">
        <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-user"></span> Login
    </a>
</li>

<li *ngIf="_loggedIn" [routerLinkActive]="['link-active']">
    <a (click)="logout()" [routerLink]="['/logout']">
        <span class='glyphicon glyphicon-log-out'></span> Logout
    </a>
</li>

After:
<li [routerLinkActive]="['link-active']">
    <a *ngIf="!isAuthorized" (click)="login()" [routerLink]="['/login']">
        <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-user"></span> Login
    </a>
</li>

<li [routerLinkActive]="['link-active']">
    <a *ngIf="isAuthorized" (click)="logout()">
        <span class='glyphicon glyphicon-log-out'></span> Logout</a>
</li>

The final change in this file was to make the link to fetch-data only show if the user is logging instead of sending the user to an unauthorized view.

Before:
<a [routerLink]="['/fetch-data']">
    <span class='glyphicon glyphicon-th-list'></span> Fetch data
</a>

After:
<a *ngIf="isAuthorized" [routerLink]="['/fetch-data']">
    <span class='glyphicon glyphicon-th-list'></span> Fetch data
</a>

Fetch Data Component

The final changes for the conversion to the new client are in the fetchdata.component.ts and they are only needed because of a rename of the HTTP Get helper in the AuthService.

Before:
authService.AuthGet(apiUrl + 'SampleData/WeatherForecasts').subscribe(result => {

After:
authService.get(apiUrl + 'SampleData/WeatherForecasts').subscribe(result => {

Wrapping Up

This change took a lot of changes, but in the long run, it is going to be a better choice since the new client is focused on Angular. Another great thing about this client is they are looking into ways to handle the first load not remembering the user is logged in due to server side rendering (issue #36).

The finished code for this post can be found here.

Identity Server: Changing Angular OpenID Connect Clients Read More »

Identity Server: Redirect When Route Requires Logged in User

This post is going to continue where the series on IdentityServer4 left off, but I am not officially making it part of the series. There may be a few posts like this where I improve on the example applications from the series. The starting code for this post can be found here.

All the changes in the post are in the Client Application from the sample linked above. I did some cleanup on a couple of files so if you are looking for the differences keep in mind most of the changes are a result of the cleanup.

Unauthorized Component

The first step is to add a new component that will be shown to the user when they navigate to a page that requires them to be logged in but they are not. Add a unauthorized.component.html file to the ClientApp/app/components/unauthorized/ directory with the following contents.

<h2>
    Login is required to access this area
</h2>
<div>
    <button type="button" 
            class="btn btn-primary" 
            (click)="login()">Login</button>
    <button type="button" 
            class="btn btn-default" 
            (click)="goback()">Back</button>
</div>

This will tell the user they need to log in and provide a login button and a button to go back to the previous page. Next, add a unauthorized.component.ts file to the same directory. This class will handle the clicks from the view.

import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core';
import { Location } from '@angular/common';
import { AuthService } from '../services/auth.service';

@Component({
    selector: 'app-unauthorized',
    templateUrl: 'unauthorized.component.html'
})
export class UnauthorizedComponent implements OnInit {

    constructor(private location: Location, private service: AuthService) {

    }

    ngOnInit() {
    }

    login() {
        this.service.startSigninMainWindow();
    }

    goback() {
        this.location.back();
    }
}

This class is using the AuthService for login and Angular’s Location class to move back to the previous page.

New Component Usage

Now that this new component exists it needs to set up in app.module.shared.ts. First, add an import.

import { UnauthorizedComponent } from './components/unauthorized/unauthorized.component';

Next, add to the declarations array.

declarations: [
    AppComponent,
    NavMenuComponent,
    CounterComponent,
    FetchDataComponent,
    HomeComponent,
    CallbackComponent,
    UnauthorizedComponent
]

Finally, add unauthorized to the routes array.

RouterModule.forRoot([
    { path: '', redirectTo: 'home', pathMatch: 'full' },
    { path: 'home', component: HomeComponent },
    { path: 'callback', component: CallbackComponent },
    { path: 'unauthorized', component: UnauthorizedComponent },
    { path: 'counter', component: CounterComponent },
    { path: 'fetch-data', component: FetchDataComponent, 
                          canActivate:[AuthGuardService]  },
    { path: '**', redirectTo: 'home' }
])

Now that this new component is in place how does it get used? Well, any route that has canActivate:[AuthGuardService] will require the user to be logged in to activate. For example, the fetch-data route above won’t activate unless the user is logged in.

Auth Guard Service

AuthGuardService is an existing class in the project. The following is the full file.

import { Injectable, Component } from '@angular/core';
import { CanActivate, Router } from '@angular/router';

import { AuthService } from './auth.service';

@Injectable()
export class AuthGuardService implements CanActivate {

    constructor(private authService: AuthService, private router: Router) {
    }

    canActivate() {
        if (this.authService.loggedIn) {
            return true;
        }
        else {
            this.router.navigate(['unauthorized']);
        }
    }
}

As you can see in the canActivate function if the user is logged in then the function returns true otherwise, the user is routed to the unauthorized component. Before the changes in this post, this dropped the user back on the home page since the unauthorized component didn’t exist.

Wrapping up

With the changes above the user gets a slightly better experience. Just being dropped on the home page wasn’t very helpful as to why that was happening. This at least lets the user know they need to log in. Another option could be to hide the navigation for the routes they don’t have access to until they log it.

The finished version of the code can be found here.

Identity Server: Redirect When Route Requires Logged in User Read More »