Develop Reference

Is it possible to place Bing/Google Maps autocomplete postal address textbox in desktop windows form app using C#?

I'm a noob at C#, this is my first programming language and I am currently working my way through the book C# in a Nutshell. I have started a project to automate a lot of what I do at work all day.
If it is possible can anyone recommend a good place to start researching how to do this specifically? The only resource that I can find is:
Google maps autocomplete textbox in c#
But he says in the end he could never get it to work. It gives me an idea about how to go about it but I don't know what he was doing wrong.
I want to implement an order placing system and the first thing the user will need to do is enter customer name and address.
The end game is getting the address and comparing it to a database of stored addresses, if the post/zip code matches then load up the account and if it doesn't then create a new account using the address details.
Being able to use a Microsoft or Google api would prevent me from having to host a database with every UK address in it.
EDIT: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-autocomplete-addressform
As per Google, below is the JavaScript code for this functionality but in a web page. As you can see the comments state that the JS library Places is required. Does this mean I can't just work on the conversion and that some functionality will be missing. This is all embedded within HTML which I have not included:
// This example displays an address form, using the autocomplete feature
// of the Google Places API to help users fill in the information.
// This example requires the Places library. Include the libraries=places
// parameter when you first load the API. For example:
// <script src="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js? key=YOUR_API_KEY&libraries=places">
var placeSearch, autocomplete;
var componentForm = {
street_number: 'short_name',
route: 'long_name',
locality: 'long_name',
administrative_area_level_1: 'short_name',
country: 'long_name',
postal_code: 'short_name'
};
function initAutocomplete() {
// Create the autocomplete object, restricting the search to geographical
// location types.
autocomplete = new google.maps.places.Autocomplete(
/** #type {!HTMLInputElement} */(document.getElementById('autocomplete')),
{types: ['geocode']});
// When the user selects an address from the dropdown, populate the address
// fields in the form.
autocomplete.addListener('place_changed', fillInAddress);
}
function fillInAddress() {
// Get the place details from the autocomplete object.
var place = autocomplete.getPlace();
for (var component in componentForm) {
document.getElementById(component).value = '';
document.getElementById(component).disabled = false;
}
// Get each component of the address from the place details
// and fill the corresponding field on the form.
for (var i = 0; i < place.address_components.length; i++) {
var addressType = place.address_components[i].types[0];
if (componentForm[addressType]) {
var val = place.address_components[i][componentForm[addressType]];
document.getElementById(addressType).value = val;
}
}
}
// Bias the autocomplete object to the user's geographical location,
// as supplied by the browser's 'navigator.geolocation' object.
function geolocate() {
if (navigator.geolocation) {
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position) {
var geolocation = {
lat: position.coords.latitude,
lng: position.coords.longitude
};
var circle = new google.maps.Circle({
center: geolocation,
radius: position.coords.accuracy
});
autocomplete.setBounds(circle.getBounds());
});
}
}

Bing Maps only provides auto suggest/complete through their web control currently. You can host this inside of a web browser control in your app but that will be messy and likely won't work well with your layout.
Take a look at Azure Location Based Serv- ices. They have several REST services which can be used for auto suggest/complete for addresses/places, points of interest and more. Simply set the typeahead URL parameter to true to put the service into predictive mode. Here are some useful resources:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/location-based-services/tutorial-search-location
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/location-based-services/search/getsearchaddress
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/location-based-services/search/getsearchfuzzy
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/location-based-services/search/getsearchpoi
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/location-based-services/search/getsearchpoicategory

Perform a Google/Bing Maps search from a utr

I'm working on project that simulates (for lack of better word) a GPS. The user is able to select a State, City and address e.g 000 someadress.dr and I have it set up so that when the submit button is clicked all of these components are combined into a single string. I'm wondering if its possible to perform a map search on either platform through the address bar, if it is could possibly do something like this:
private void btnSubmitAddress_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
string stateSelected = this.cbState.Text; // Stores the selected State
string citySelected = this.cbCity.Text; // Stores the selected City
string addressSelected = this.cbPreDefAddress.Text; // Store the selected address
string result = addressSelected + " " + citySelected + " " + stateSelected; // Creates a single address string.
wbSatNavBrowser.Navigate("https://www.bing.com/maps/search?" + result);
}

The Bing Maps website is a consumer product and shouldn't be loaded inside of business applications. Instead, consider using the Bing Maps developer API's. The Bing Maps WPF control works inside of WinForms, here is a blog post on this: https://rbrundritt.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/using-bing-maps-in-winforms/
You can geocode locations using the REST services. Here is a great .NET library for using these services: https://github.com/Microsoft/BingMapsRESTToolkit
If you want the most mapping features, you can also host the Bing Maps web control inside of a web browser control. Here is a code sample: https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Using-the-Bing-Maps-V8-Web-07e21f3a?redir=0

The docs show some examples of how to pass parameters.
This example sets the centerpoint of the map.
http://bing.com/maps/default.aspx?cp=47.677797~-122.122013
To open Bing Maps to a specific address:
http://bing.com/maps/default.aspx?rtp=adr.One%20Microsoft%20Way,%20Redmond,%20WA%2098052~pos.45.23423_-122.1232_MyPlace&rtop=0~1~0

Users time tracking on websites/web application

I have a requirement to track how much time the user spending time on web sites/web application. Its like a time tracking tool for websites, I have wpf application which will open the websites on IE/Chrome/Firefox. I need to track the how much time user works on the website.
Chrome and firefox provides the history which i can get from sqlite database that stores in the user system but IE doesn't provide any information about the history.
Is there a better way i can track all browser activity with the user spending time on each websites?

I have wpf application which will open the websites on
IE/Chrome/Firefox. I need to track the how much time user works on the
website
It's a very important Feature Request by many for web 2.0 applications. So, I write a detailed, working and simple solution on the subject here.
You are requesting a feature already created for this workflow. It's a plugin you can include in any website. It's none other than time-on-site tracking in timeonsite.js
Look at the following code (Use latest version; don't just copy/paste),
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/timeonsite/1.2.0/timeonsitetracker.js"></script>
<script>
var config = {
// track page by seconds. Default tracking is by milliseconds
trackBy: 'seconds',
trackHistoryChange: true, //Single-page React/Angular app
callback: function(data) { /* callback denotes your data tracking is real-time */
console.log(data);
var endPointUrl = 'http://example.com' //Replace with your actual backend API URL http://localhost/tos
if (data && data.trackingType) {
if (data.trackingType == 'tos') {
if (Tos.verifyData(data) != 'valid') {
console.log('Data abolished!');
return;
}
}
// make use of sendBeacon if this API is supported by your browser.
if (navigator && typeof navigator.sendBeacon === 'function') {
data.trasferredWith = 'sendBeacon';
var blob = new Blob([JSON.stringify(data)], {type : 'application/json'});
navigator.sendBeacon(endPointUrl, blob);
}
}
}
};
var Tos;
if (TimeOnSiteTracker) {
Tos = new TimeOnSiteTracker(config);
}
</script>
</head>
Then, when you refresh, reload or navigate the React app page,
You'll see following object directly saved into your table/printed in browser console. Select "persist" in logs,
{
TOSId: 1129620185532,
TOSSessionKey: "14802525481391382263",
TOSUserId: "anonymous",
title: "Test application - Home page",
URL: "http://nature-blogs/pages/home.php"
entryTime: "2021-11-27 13:15:48.663",
currentTime: "2021-11-27 13:17:31.663",
timeOnPage: 103,
timeOnSite: 103,
timeOnPageTrackedBy: "second",
timeOnPageByDuration: "0d 00h 01m 43s",
timeOnSiteByDuration: "0d 00h 01m 43s",
trackingType: "tos",
}
As you can see, the actions
"entryTime" is captured
"exitTime" is captured in seconds/milliseconds depending upon configuration
"type:time_on_site" is captured
"timeOnPage" is captured // individual page time
"timeOnSite" is captured // session overall page time
What else you need? Since it's stored in SQL DB table, you can do analysis/reporting queries yourself. This works in any RDBMS DB smoothly.
On top of it, 1.Minimize tab, 2.Inactive tab and 3.Switch tab's idle time are all computed and ignored automatically by the tracker itself.
The only thing to note in configuration part is,
trackHistoryChange: true
If the page routing depends on Location Hash or also known as single-page app, include this setting. On the other hand if your web application is a normal page like Wikipedia, avoid setting this line. You are done. For showing the real-time stay time on screen, check this SO post. It's using Jquery to show the results. You can customize it for your React app.
This tracker can be plugged-in in any library VueJs, React, Angular, Jquery, MooTools etc. since it's plain vanilla JS library.
Let me know if you need more input on the subject. I can assist you on this.

How to get data from a client on load?

I'm aware that data can be passed in through the URL, like "example.com/thing?id=1234", or it can be passed in through a form and a "submit" button, but neither of these methods will work for me.
I need to get a fairly large xml string/file. I need to parse it and get the data from it before I can even display my page.
How can I get this on page load? Does the client have to send a http request? Or submit the xml as a string to a hidden form?
Edit with background info:
I am creating a widget that will appear in my customer's application, embedded using C# WebBrowser control, but will be hosted on my server. The web app needs to pass some data (including a token for client validation) to my widget via xml, and this needs to be loaded in first thing when my widget starts up.

ASP.NET MVC 4 works great with jQuery and aJax posts. I have accomplished this goal many times by taking advantage of this.
jQuery:
$(document).ready(function() {
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "/{controller}/{action}/",
data: { clientToken: '{token}', foo: 'bar',
success: function (data, text) {
//APPEND YOUR PAGE WITH YOUR PARSED XML DATA
//NOTE: 'data' WILL CONTAIN YOUR RETURNED RESULT
}
});
});
MVC Controller:
[HttpPost]
public JsonResult jqGetXML(string clientToken, string foo)
{
JsonResult jqResult = new JsonResult();
//GET YOUR XML DATA AND DO YOUR WORK
jqResult.Data = //WHATEVER YOU WANT TO RETURN;
return jqResult;
}
Note: This example returns Json data (easier to work with IMO), not XML. It also assumes that the XML data is not coming from the client but is stored server-side.
EDIT: Here is a link to jQuery's Ajax documentation,
http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/

Assuming you're using ASP.NET, since you say it's generated by another page, just stick the XML in the Session state.

Another approach, not sure if it helps in your situation.
If you share the second level domain name on your two sites (i.e. .....sitename.com ) then another potential way to share data is you could have them assert a cookie at this 2nd level with the token and xml data in it. You'll then be provided with this cookie.
I've only done this to share authentication details, you need to share machine keys at a minimum to support this (assuming .Net here...).

You won't be able to automatically upload a file from the client to the server - at least not via a browser using html/js/httprequests. The browser simply will not allow this.
Imagine the security implications if browsers allowed you to silently upload a file from the clients local machine without their knowledge.

Sample solution:
Background process imports xml file and parses it. The background process knows it is for customer YYY and updates their information so it know the xml file has been processed.
A visitor goes to the customer's web application where the widget is embedded. In the markup of the widget the customer token has been added. This could be in JavaScript, Flash, iFrame, etc.
When the widget loads, it makes a request to you app which then checks to see if the file was parsed for the provided customer (YYY) if it has, then show the page/widget.

If the XML is being served via HTTP you can use Liqn to parse the data.
Ex.
public partial class Sample : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string url = "http://news.yahoo.com/rss/";
var el = XElement.Load(url).Elements("channel");
StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder();
foreach (var c in el.Elements())
{
switch (c.Name.LocalName.ToLower())
{
case "title":
output.Append(c.Value);
output.Append("<br />");
break;
}
}
this.Label1.Text = output.ToString();
}
}

It is not exactly clear what the application is and what kind of options you have, and what kind of control over web server you have.
If you are the owner of the web server/application your options are way wider. You can first send a file to web-server with HTTP POST or PUT, including a random token, and then use the same token for GET with token in the query string
or use other options, applicable to third party-owned websites
if you are trying to consume some auth api, learn more about it. since you are hosting web browser control, you have plenty of options to script it. including loading whatever form, setting textarea or hidden field text with your xml and then simulating a submit button click. you can then respond to any redirects and html responses.
you can also inject javascript inside the page that would send it to server with ajax request.
the choice heavily depends on the interaction model.
if you need better advice, it would be most helpful if you provided sample/simplified url/url pattern, form content, and sequence of events that is expected from you from code/api/sdk perspective. they are usually quite friendly.

There are limited number of ways to pass data between pages. Personally for this I would keep in session during the generating page and clear it when it is retrieved in the required page.
If it is generated server side then there is no reason to retrieve it from client side.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6c3yckfw(v=vs.100).aspx

Create a webservice that your C# app can POST the XML to and get back HTML in response. Load this HTML string into the WebBrowser control rather than pointing the control to a URL.

Facebook "fan gate" with C#/asp.net

The problem is that 1) Facebook seems so fluid with how it allows developers to interact with it (FBML, iFrame, different versions of SDKs) and 2) Everything I find is either PHP or Javascript and I have NO experience with those. What I am trying to do seems sooo simple, and I can't believe there isn't an easy way to do this.
What I have:
I used Visual Studio 2010 to create a simple web application (asp.net/C#) that asks the user for some info (first name, last name, email, etc.). I have a button on there called "Submit" that, when clicked, saves the entered data into a database. I have this hosted on GoDaddy (I know, I know...heh) and it works just fine. No problem here.
I created a "Facebook App" that uses the iFrame thingy so that basically I have a new tab on Facebook that displays my web app mentioned above. This works fine too. The tab is there, the web app is there, and users can enter the data and it is saved to the database. No problem here.
What I WANT:
I want the web app (the thing displayed by the facebook app) to only show the data entry part if the user currently "likes" the facebook entity. I DO NOT want to have to ask permission. I just want to know if they are a fan of the company's facebook "page" that has this app. So I need two things here, shown in my pseudo code below:
Part 1 (check if user is already a fan):
If (user is fan)
{
Show data entry area (unhide it)
}
else
{
Show "Click the like button to see more options"
}
Part 2 (listen for "like" event)
WhenLikeButtonPressed()
{
Show data entry area (unhide it)
}
I've seen stuff about "visible to connection", C# sdk, edge.create, etc. but I just can't make heads or tails of it. I don't mind putting in Javascript or PHP if someone could please give me exact, "Fan Gate for Dummies" steps. Please, I'm going crazy over here :-(

The key is is the signed_request that Facebook posts to your app when the user accesses the page. It contains the data on whether or not the user likes the page. You shouldn't need to worry about catching edge events on an actual tab FB page as it get's reloaded when the user likes/unlikes the page.
You'll need to decode the signed request with your app secret to get the like info. There are examples provided for PHP but I'm sure with a little google help you can find decode info for the signed_request for asp.net/c#.
Here's the php decode for reference:
function parse_signed_request($signed_request, $secret) {
list($encoded_sig, $payload) = explode('.', $signed_request, 2);
// decode the data
$sig = base64_url_decode($encoded_sig);
$data = json_decode(base64_url_decode($payload), true);
if (strtoupper($data['algorithm']) !== 'HMAC-SHA256') {
error_log('Unknown algorithm. Expected HMAC-SHA256');
return null;
}
// check sig
$expected_sig = hash_hmac('sha256', $payload, $secret, $raw = true);
if ($sig !== $expected_sig) {
error_log('Bad Signed JSON signature!');
return null;
}
return $data;
}
function base64_url_decode($input) {
return base64_decode(strtr($input, '-_', '+/'));
}
and the link https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/signed_request/ the like info will be contained in the page variable