azure-scaffolder

Enables scaffolding in MVC5 of Microsoft Azure Table Storage entities.

The Blue Marble Software (Pty) Ltd. Azure Table Storage Scaffolder is a Visual Studio Scaffolding extension that allows scaffolding in ASP MVC projects for Microsoft Azure Table entities.

This is the first release, and many more will come.

The code for this extension is available on GitHub at https://github.com/bluemarblesoftware/azure-scaffolder.

A sample MVC Project for this extension is available on GitHub at https://github.com/bluemarblesoftware/azure-scaffolder/tree/master/MVCSample.

In order to use this scaffolder, you will need to follow these steps. To start, install the following NuGet dependencies.

install-package WindowsAzure.Storage
install-package BlueMarble.Shared
install-package BlueMarble.Shared.Azure
install-package KendoUIWeb

Next, add a storage context class to your web project. This class has to be a partial class, and enables the scaffolder to created extended partial classes for each model included in the scaffolding.

public partial class StorageContext: BlueMarble.Shared.Azure.Storage.Table.StorageContext
{
    public StorageContext(Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.CloudStorageAccount StorageAccount)
        : base(StorageAccount)
    {
    }

    public StorageContext()
        : base(new Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.CloudStorageAccount(
            new Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Auth.StorageCredentials(
                Properties.Settings.Default.StorageAccountName,
                Properties.Settings.Default.StorageAccountKey), true))
    {
    }

    public override void InitializeTables()
    {
        base.InitializeTables();
    }
}

We're ready to add the models next. Models are any class that inherits from BlueMarble.Shared.Azure.Storage.Table.Entity, this class itself inherits from Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableEntity.

The model classes expose properties that are serialized and deserialized to and from storage. These properties can only be primitive types.

public class StockItem : BlueMarble.Shared.Azure.Storage.Table.Entity
{
    public string StockKeepingUnit { get; set; }

    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }

    public decimal CostPrice { get; set; }
    public decimal ListPrice { get; set; }

    public int Width { get; set; }
    public int Length { get; set; }
    public int Height { get; set; }

    [RelatedTable(Type=typeof(MVCSample.Models.DimensionUnit))]
    public string DimensionUnitPublicId { get; set; }

    public int Weight { get; set; }

    [RelatedTable(Type = typeof(MVCSample.Models.WeightUnit))]
    public string WeightUnitPublicId { get; set; }

    [RelatedTable(Type = typeof(MVCSample.Models.Category))]
    public string CategoryPublicId { get; set; }
}

In the code above, relationships are determined by decorating properties with the RelatedTable Attribute.

A known issue in identifying the related table during scaffolding requires that the full namespace be used.

A good practice would be to post-fix related properties with PublicId. This property will store the Public Id of the related table entry.

The next step is to create the related tables. This example specifically uses generic lookup tables. These tables all inherit from LookupEntity (see below).

public class DimensionUnit : LookupEntity
{
}

The next code illustrates a shared LookupEntity class to inherit from for common lookup tables.

public class LookupEntity : BlueMarble.Shared.Azure.Storage.Table.Entity
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }

    public int Order { get; set; }
}

Now you are ready to run the scaffolding process. Right click anywhere in the web project, choose Add > New Scaffolded Item.

Next choose Razor Pages using Microsoft Azure Table Storage

On the scaffold screen, select all of the models that you want to generate code for, and the storage context to extend.

The resulting code will have the following components:

• ApiController: All data interactions are done through an WebApi 2.0 controller.
• Controller: Only the required code to deal with showing the views.
• Views: Create, Update, Detail, Delete, Index views are created. Views use Telerik KendoUI components
• Create: Uses KendoUI MVVM components with an HTTP Post to upload the data
• Edit: Uses KendoUI MVVM components with an HTTP Get to retrieve the data, and an HTTP Put to upload the data
• Details: Uses KendoUI MVVM components with an HTTP Get to retrieve the data
• Delete: Uses KendoUI MVVM components with an HTTP Get to retrieve the data
• Index: Uses DataTables.net components with an HTTP Get to retrieve the data
• Scripts: A comprehensive data access script is generated for each table, and included on views where applicable.
• Models: A partial StorageContext is created containing code relevant to each Microsoft Azure Table entity.