Website version?

I recently gave myself a scare because I was running an old version of
my web site. Many changes are not possible to detect when running a
test. That made me think that it would be useful to know the exact
version of the web site and that I never see that on sites. Whenever
we run a desktop app, we can go to Help | About and get the exact
build. Why not the same thing for ASP.NET apps? Where would be the
bast place to store and display such information? Would it be cool to
have a little Easter Egg kind of button in the master page footer that
displayed important info about the web app?

-John

John Baima

"John Baima" <> wrote in message
news:...

> That made me think that it would be useful to know the exact
> version of the web site and that I never see that on sites.

The whole point of a website is that it exists centrally and clients access
it over the Internet. Apart from mirrors etc, there should only ever be one
version of it - the latest version - and it should be of supreme
unimportance to the clients what that version is.

> Whenever we run a desktop app, we can go to Help | About and get the exact
> build.

Yes, but that's there because you have installed that app on your desktop -
as soon as you did that, it became disconnected from the software vendor who
could produce a hundred new versions while you continued with your old
version.

> Why not the same thing for ASP.NET apps?

Because it is completely unnecessary! Suppose your website said it was
version 2.3 (build 1234) - what possible use would that be to me?

> Would it be cool to have a little Easter Egg kind of button in the master
> page footer that
> displayed important info about the web app?

Like what...?

Mark Rae

"Mark Rae" <> wrote:

>"John Baima" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>
>> That made me think that it would be useful to know the exact
>> version of the web site and that I never see that on sites.
>
>The whole point of a website is that it exists centrally and clients access
>it over the Internet. Apart from mirrors etc, there should only ever be one
>version of it - the latest version - and it should be of supreme
>unimportance to the clients what that version is.

Well, in this case, we have two sites, one for internal consumption
and one for external use. The two should always be in sync, but they
were not. I think that it would be useful to be able to know what the
exact version is.

We also sometimes get bug reports that are delayed. If we asked users
(these are internal corp people) to always include the version number
in their communication, it would make it more clear if what they are
reporting has been corrected or not. If people always reported things
in real time, this would not be a problem but we get reports that are
old. How old? What version was running??

-John

-John

John Baima

"John Baima" <> wrote in message
news:...

> Well, in this case, we have two sites, one for internal consumption
> and one for external use. The two should always be in sync, but they
> were not. I think that it would be useful to be able to know what the
> exact version is.

Sounds to me like you have a version control problem with your development
team - fix that, and you'll be fine...

Mark Rae

If you download/install Web Deployment Projects,
you can use assembly naming/versioning for web applications.

Details :
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archi...06/429723.aspx

Download it here :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/re...p/default.aspx



Juan T. Llibre, asp.net MVP
aspnetfaq.com : http://www.aspnetfaq.com/
asp.net faq : http://asp.net.do/faq/
foros de asp.net, en español : http://asp.net.do/foros/
===================================
"John Baima" <> wrote in message news:...
> "Mark Rae" <> wrote:
>
>>"John Baima" <> wrote in message
>>news:. ..
>>
>>> That made me think that it would be useful to know the exact
>>> version of the web site and that I never see that on sites.
>>
>>The whole point of a website is that it exists centrally and clients access
>>it over the Internet. Apart from mirrors etc, there should only ever be one
>>version of it - the latest version - and it should be of supreme
>>unimportance to the clients what that version is.
>
> Well, in this case, we have two sites, one for internal consumption
> and one for external use. The two should always be in sync, but they
> were not. I think that it would be useful to be able to know what the
> exact version is.
>
> We also sometimes get bug reports that are delayed. If we asked users
> (these are internal corp people) to always include the version number
> in their communication, it would make it more clear if what they are
> reporting has been corrected or not. If people always reported things
> in real time, this would not be a problem but we get reports that are
> old. How old? What version was running??
>
> -John
>
> -John
>

Juan T. Llibre

Hi,

John Baima wrote:
> I recently gave myself a scare because I was running an old version of
> my web site. Many changes are not possible to detect when running a
> test. That made me think that it would be useful to know the exact
> version of the web site and that I never see that on sites. Whenever
> we run a desktop app, we can go to Help | About and get the exact
> build. Why not the same thing for ASP.NET apps? Where would be the
> bast place to store and display such information? Would it be cool to
> have a little Easter Egg kind of button in the master page footer that
> displayed important info about the web app?
>
> -John

More and more, I notice that there are scenarios for websites, and
scenarios for web applications, and how different these two animals are.
What you want to do is totally understandable, but it's actually more a
web application scenario. In that case, you should rather use the web
application project at http://webproject.scottgu.com/

This will allow you to control the versioning of the assembly.

For a website scenario, however, versioning is not (and shouldn't be)
relevant, and the "new website" option in VS2005 is good enough.

HTH,
Laurent
--
Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft
Software engineering: http://www.galasoft-LB.ch
PhotoAlbum: http://www.galasoft-LB.ch/pictures
Support children in Calcutta: http://www.calcutta-espoir.ch

Laurent Bugnion

re:
> you should rather use the web application project at http://webproject.scottgu.com/

The Web Deployment Project allow versioning, too.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archi...06/429723.aspx

The key is that they both fully exploit msbuild's features.




Juan T. Llibre, asp.net MVP
aspnetfaq.com : http://www.aspnetfaq.com/
asp.net faq : http://asp.net.do/faq/
foros de asp.net, en español : http://asp.net.do/foros/
===================================
"Laurent Bugnion" <galasoft-> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi,
>
> John Baima wrote:
>> I recently gave myself a scare because I was running an old version of
>> my web site. Many changes are not possible to detect when running a
>> test. That made me think that it would be useful to know the exact
>> version of the web site and that I never see that on sites. Whenever
>> we run a desktop app, we can go to Help | About and get the exact
>> build. Why not the same thing for ASP.NET apps? Where would be the
>> bast place to store and display such information? Would it be cool to
>> have a little Easter Egg kind of button in the master page footer that
>> displayed important info about the web app?
>>
>> -John
>
> More and more, I notice that there are scenarios for websites, and scenarios for web applications,
> and how different these two animals are. What you want to do is totally understandable, but it's
> actually more a web application scenario. In that case, you should rather use the web application
> project at http://webproject.scottgu.com/
>
> This will allow you to control the versioning of the assembly.
>
> For a website scenario, however, versioning is not (and shouldn't be) relevant, and the "new
> website" option in VS2005 is good enough.
>
> HTH,
> Laurent
> --
> Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft
> Software engineering: http://www.galasoft-LB.ch
> PhotoAlbum: http://www.galasoft-LB.ch/pictures
> Support children in Calcutta: http://www.calcutta-espoir.ch

Juan T. Llibre