Develop Reference

Is there a way to capture a view and save it?

We have many element(s) in a ContentPage. The goal is to take a picture of a specific element and then have access to that data - to save it or possibly other things such as cropping it.
So this question is twofold - is there a way to photographically capture a given element? Is there a way to do this if the element is not fully in view? Example a ScrollView would potentially have some of its elements not currently in view.
Our attempt at this is to use device specific screenshots and crop them to a given element. The screenshots are working, but we aren't having luck with cropping. Not to mention in the case as described above the screenshot will not work as the view isn't fully visible.
Is there a way to obtain the "graphical" (photo) data of an element at a given time even if it's not currently visible/partially visible?
Thanks for reading in advance.

After a lot of talking, this is what I understand
The Users of your application are the Workers of Your company
The application is for managing the accounts of your companies Customers
The Customers have no access to their data, in any shape or form
Part of the Customer Data is their Email Adress
You want to send a copy of their Data to the Customers
As Emails do not allow formating that well, you want to send that Data as a Screenshot of the UI.
If I got all that right:
You are neck-deep in a XY Problem. Or rather a ((XY)Y)Y Problem - a XY problem of the 3rd Generation.
The obvious solution would be to fix point 3 and give your customers access to their Data already:
You can do that via a extra Programm, App, a Webpage or anything similar. If they can receive emails, they can download a app or open a Webpage and see their data there. May need a login, but nothing special. There are even ways to encode data/direct links into Emails and register your Programm with a custom Format. Indeed, that is how Steam Links on the Desktop work.
Meanwhile the In-House user get a "Customer Management" Programm that allows more direct access to the Customers Data in the Database (I asume you got a backend Database. But it is at least possible you do not).
If you can not fix Option 3 for stupid Boss/Legal Reasons (these are the only Valid reasons I can Imagine. And I can not stress enoug how stupid the boss would have to be in that), you should at least be able to fix at Point 5/6:
The first Option would be to send Text Emails. People often underestimate jsut how much is possible with pure Text. It is basically like writing on a Console, but even that is enough medium to make a Art in it.
The other ways involve Managing the HTML limitations:
Save HTML Mail
The main security issue with HTML mails, is "downloading external content" part. Those operations can not be reliable scanned by Virus scanners and the like - especially in the age of HTTPS. Unless we talk about Kaspersky and the stupid Idea they had.
And even if they can be scanned reliable, even just the request of those files can be used for spam senders to verify the Email Adress is still in use. So it is a no-go too.
So you will need to Inline as much as possible. Inlining images is not that possible. While HTML totally has a Standart for that - you Base64 encode the binary into the HTML - this does not work reliably. At least Microsoft Outlook is known to interpret all Base64 images in the Email as Attachments - even the inlined ones. And even if they fixed this or it is no longer a relevant issue, inlining images tends to increase the HTML size significantly.
You can use CSS to some degree. But aside from inlining it, you might have to go back a step or two. In the end, Email Programms are really weak web-browsers. So they do not nessesarily support all the latest stuff instantly. Anything below CSS 3.0 should reliably work by now. But you better ask someone once you got more specific Requirements for this Email.
PDF Attachment
Somewhat more established is to create a .PDF file and send it. All those bills/other stuff in .PDF format you get - those have been created on demand from a Database, by the same code that also send the Email. In many cases the demand was automated too or the Sending Programm was a outright Background Process.
.PDF allows all Formating you could want. It can take up images inline. And there is plenty of ways to create .PDF from code. And as you can send it as a attachment, the Virus scanner has time to go over it. And we are not in the last Millenium, where a PDF Reader was a uncommon programm to have installed (I still remember the times when a current Version of Acrobat PDf Reader was delivered on every CD with a .PDF Format Handbook).
If you are stil dead serious about the whole "make a Image of the UI to send that", my only question is: How many Years have been aloted for that?

How can I copy HTML textbox values from one domain to another domain's textboxes?

I'm trying to help save time at work with for a lot of tedious copy/paste tasks we have.
So, we have a propitiatory CRM (with proper HTML ID's, etc for accessing elements) and I'd like to copy those vales from the CRM to textboxes on other web pages (outside of the CRM, so sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc)
I'm aware browsers limit this for security and I'm open to anything, it can be a C#/C++ application, Adobe AIR, etc. We only use Firefox at work so even an extension would work. (We do have GreaseMonkey installed so if that's usable too, sweet).
So, any ideas on how to copy values from one web page to another? Ideally, I'm looking to click a button and have it auto-populate fields. If that button has to launch the web pages that need to be copied over to, that's fine.
Example: Copy customers Username from our CRM, paste it in Facebook's Username field when creating a new account.
UPDATE: To answer a user below, the HTML elements on each domain have specific HTML ID's. The data won't need to be manipulated or cleaned up, just a simple copy from ourCRM.com to facebook.com / twitter.com

Ruby Mechanize is a good bet for scraping the data. Then you can store it and post it however you please.

First, I'd suggest that you more clearly define exactly what it is you're looking to do. I read this as you're trying to take some unstructured data from Point A and copy it to Point B. Do the names of these fields remain constant every time you do the operation? Do you need to simply pull any textbox elements from the page and copy them all over? Do some sort of filtering of this data before writing it over?
Once you've got a clear idea of the requirements, if you go the C# route, I'd use something like SimpleBrowser. Judging by the example on their Github page, you could give it the URL of the page you're looking to copy, then name each of the fields you're looking to obtain the value of, perhaps store these in an IDictionary, then open a new URL and copy those values back into the page (and submit the form).
Alternatively, if you don't know the names of the fields, perhaps there's a provided function in that or a similar project that will allow you to simply enumerate all the text fields on the page and retrieve the values for all of them. Then you'd simply apply some logic of your own to filter those options down to whatever is on the destination form.

SO we thought of an easier way to do this (in case anyone else runs into this issue).
1) From our CRM, we added a "Sign up for Facebook" button
2) The button opens a new window with GET variables in the URL
3) Use a greasemonkey script to read those GET variables and fill in textbox values
4) SUCCESS!
Simple, took about 10 minutes to get working. Thanks for you suggestions.

How to protect your resources like photos uploaded by the user

I have some PDFs uploaded by the user and they are saved on hard drive. Those PDFs should actually only be visible by the user who uploaded. But at the moment it is not secure. If somebody guesses the name of the PDF, it can be viewed by anybody else too.
Eg: http://www.something.com/PDFs/abcghjiekm.PDF
This is a security threat. What I'd like to be able to do is have some kind of logic that processes the request to these PDFs and compare it with my DB to see if this PDF is actually belonging to the user who requested it. How can I do that?
Edit: I cannot use FileStream as my website is already up and running. I don't want to change all of the codebase and go into each and every aspx page to hunt where the PDFs are accessed.

You could handle PDF through an special HttpHandler in IIS instead of the StaticFile-Handler and check for Access-Rights.
IF you are using MVC a route like /PFDs/{file}.pdf with an Controller returning Content will do.

You could also use some sort of security-by-obscurity, which is less secure, but easier to implement. For example you could save the PDFs in a folder such as PDFs//abcghjiekm.PDF where the guid is the userId of the uploading user. This way guessing the right path for a given file is much harder.
I wouldn't recommend this method if you really need to protect private user data from unauthorized access, but if all that you're trying to achieve is some sort of error-protection (so that users wont access each-other files by mistake) this ought to do it.
If you need real security - I would recommend doing what Grumbler85 suggested.

I think you should use the FileStream, part of the Sql Server 2008 and above to store these files.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933993%28v=sql.105%29.aspx
Using it, the files area stored on disk, but in special place. And you have no problem i.e. when someone want to change any file.

Is it possible to do this in a C# ASP.NET Web Application?

I would like to write a Web Application that would have two buttons and directly from the browser would allow me to open two simple text files (using a File Open dialog box or something similar) and would then proceed to read in contents of those files and store them inside of a two strings. The key point here is that the exact files used to read from I don't known at runtime so it would be up to the user to select the files.
The goal is to be able to later compare those two strings but that part I already know how to do. My questions is this - is it even possible to do this inside of a Web Application (i.e. to call a File Open dialog box to allow the user to select files to read from) or would security limitations or some other Web Application related constraints prevent it from being done?
If it is possible, I would appreciate some sample code describing how to open files and how to read in contents of the selected files into strings. Othwerwise, I would like to know if it's not possible and I should consider doing a desktop application or try an entirely different way.
Thank you!

It is possible, but you would wind up having to upload both of the text files to the server and read the files into strings server-side.
All you would need to do is add two separate FileUpload controls to the page along with a button to post the files to the server.
If you don't want the page to refresh, you could always do the comparison via AJAX using the AsyncFileUpload control from the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit.
Update
Reading the contents of the file should be relatively easy (as long as they are plain text):
var reader = new StreamReader(fileUploadControl.PostedFile.InputStream);
var contents = reader.ReadToEnd();

One way is to use the ASP.NET AJAX AsyncFileUpload control.
http://www.asp.net/ajax/ajaxcontroltoolkit/Samples/AsyncFileUpload/AsyncFileUpload.aspx

In order to access the files from the server-side code (C# code) you'll need the user to upload them. The standard way to do this (and, for security reasons, the only way upon which you should rely) is with a file input element. In ASP.NET, you can use the FileUpload control.
You would essentially give the user two of these controls with which they can upload the two files. Then you'd read their contents on the server, save them however you wish (as files, to a database, just in Session for temporary use, etc.) and perform your logic on that data. Then build your output (the comparison part, which you said you have already) to display on the page refresh.
Be mindful of concerns such as what to do if the user tries to upload non-text files, very large files, etc.

That is not possible alone with JS. You would have to build a file upload (and store session information) or use Silverlight and a Javascript-Bridge to your Web-Application.
Here's an example for a FileOpenDialog in Silverlight: http://www.silverlightexamples.net/post/Open-File-Dialog-in-Silverlight.aspx
Here's an exmaple for a file upload via C#/Webforms http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323246

ASP.NET Uploaded File

I have an ASP.NET web application that uses jQuery on client side.
On one of the web forms I have a bunch of controls to fill, and an upload control.
User can run upload while filling other entries on the form.
When user saves the form, all data including file is stored into database .
The question is what to do with uploaded file while user fills the form?
I have two possible solutions, but don't know which of them is more optimal
Cache uploaded file, and later, while saving, retrieve it and store into database with all other data.
Save file in temporary folder, and then read it.
What is the best solution for this?
Thanks in advance.

I think the most appropriate solution will be storing uploaded file in cache.
Here is the code
var fileKey = Guid.NewGuid();
var fileStream = new Byte[Request.Files[0].ContentLength];
Request.Files[0].InputStream.Read(fileStream, 0, Request.Files[0].ContentLength);
Cache[fileKey.ToString()] = fileStream;
The fileKey GUID can be stored in ViewState, or sent as the response to client.
Later, when whole form will be saved, cached file can be retrieved and stored into database with other data.
The good thing about this method is that if user navigates from the page cached file will expire, thus avoiding resource flooding.
We can set expiration time using
Cache.Add(fileKey, fileStream, null, DateTime.UtcNow.AddMinutes(10), Cache.NoSlidingExpiration, CacheItemPriority.Default, null);
function.

How about:
3: Store it in the database but marked as in an incomplete state
This could be a separate table, or the same table with a status column.

I fail to see the difference between the 2 options: what do you mean by caching the file? Isn't it the same as saving to a temp folder?
AFAIK, most sites will not start uploading until the entire form is filled up (what if your user cancels, or browses away?). They then display an interim progress bar ("please wait while we're analyzing your data...").
As a general design rule, receiving partial data at any point in time may lead to inconstant data later. If you must do it in steps, change your form to a wizard.

Like other people mentioned - you can simply upload it. You can do it in many ways:
Upload the files in a temporary folder, and when they finally say save or complete - you can move the file from that temp folder to the other folder where you'd usually keep regular files.
One more thing that you can do, whenever the user clicks on upload button for temporary files, is that you can check you temp folder and clear other files which have stayed there for more than 1-2 days/weeks so that way you know for sure you are not wasting space.
Perhaps, you can also have a timer on
your website that regularly cleans up
this folder. I'd say this is more
efficient and you don't have to wait
for users to come in and click on
upload button to clean up your space.