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Table of contents

Quick Start
    Debugging
    MVC
    Webforms
    Pre-defined bundles
Path Aliases 
Configuration 
Prioritizing 
Versioning 
Composite Files 
Html tag attributes 
Forced providers 
More on MVC 
More on Webforms 
Rogue Files 

Quick start

To get started quickly, install CDF via Nuget. If you are using MVC be sure to install the MVC package as well.

PM> Install-Package ClientDependency

PM> Install-Package ClientDependency-Mvc

Debugging

When you're creating a website, you don't want CDF to be combining, caching & compressing all of your files because you need to be able to debug your JavaScript and CSS in the browser so it is important to note that setting <compilation debug="true"> will disable all combining, caching, compressing, rogue script detection, etc... !!

When you deploy your website or want to test the composite files created with CDF you need to change this to <compilation debug="false">

MVC

Make your view dependent on any CSS/JavaScript file

@Html.RequiresCss("~/Css/ColorScheme.css")

@Html.RequiresJs("~/Js/jquery.js")

Make your view dependent on an entire CSS/JavaScript folder

@Html.RequiresCssFolder("~/Css/Widgets/")

@Html.RequiresJsFolder("~/Js/Controls/")

Support for chaining calls to any CDF HtmlHelper method

@Html.RequiresJs("~/Js/jquery.js")
	 .RequiresJs("~/Js/jquery.validation.js")
	 .RequiresJs("~/Js/myLib.js")

Rendering CSS/JavaScript in your page

@Html.RenderJsHere()

@Html.RenderCssHere()

Webforms

Make your page/control dependent on any CSS/JavaScript file

<CD:CssInclude runat="server" FilePath="~/CSS/ColorScheme.css" /> 

<CD:JsInclude runat="server" FilePath="~/Js/jquery.js" />

Make your page/control dependent on an entire CSS/JavaScript folder

<CD:CssFolderInclude runat="server" FolderVirtualPath="~/Css/Widgets/" /> 

<CD:JsFolderInclude runat="server" FolderVirtualPath="~/Js/Controls/" />

Make your composite controls dependent on any CSS/JavaScript file:

[ClientDependency(ClientDependencyType.Css, "~/Css/CustomControl.css")] 
public class MyControl : Control { ... }

[ClientDependency(ClientDependencyType.JavaScript, "~/Js/MyControl.js")] 
public class MyControl : Control { ... }

Rendering CSS/JavaScript in your page

You need to have a loader on your page:

<CD:ClientDependencyLoader runat="server" id="Loader" />

Then you'll need to define a place holder for where you want the JavaScript and CSS rendered

<%--This will ensure the CSS is rendered at the location of this placeholder--%>
<asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="CssPlaceHolder"></asp:PlaceHolder>

<%--This will ensure the JS is rendered at the location of this placeholder--%>
<asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="JavaScriptPlaceHolder"></asp:PlaceHolder>

NOTE: the Ids of the controls must be how they are defined above, otherwise you can change the expected ids in the CDF configuration. Also in Webforms there are various providers that allow you to change the behavior of the ClientDependencyLoader but the PlaceHolderProvider is the default and is recommended.

Pre-defined bundles

Creating a pre-defined bundle on application startup. This example creates a bundle in the global.asax:

public class MyApplication : HttpApplication
{
    protected void Application_Start()
    {        
        CreateBundles();
    }

	public static void CreateBundles()
    {
        BundleManager.CreateCssBundle("MyControl", 
            new CssFile("~/Css/Controls/MyControl/css1.css"),
            new CssFile("~/Css/Controls/MyControl/css2.css"),
            new CssFile("~/Css/Controls/MyControl/css3.css"));

		BundleManager.CreateCssBundle("JQuery", 
            new CssFile("~/Js/jquery.js"),
            new CssFile("~/Js/jquery.validation.js"));
    }
}

Referencing a bundle in MVC

@Html.RequiresCssBundle("MyControl")

@Html.RequiresJsBundle("JQuery")

Referencing a bundle in Webforms

Coming soon...