Using DocumentUltimate in an ASP.NET Core project

To use DocumentUltimate in an ASP.NET Core Project, do the following in Visual Studio:

Make sure you have added references to DocumentUltimate assemblies as described here.

Open Startup.cs of your project.

Add GleamTech to the ASP.NET Core services container. Insert the marked lines into the ConfigureServices method of your Startup.cs,

and then register GleamTech to the ASP.NET Core HTTP request pipeline. Insert the marked lines into the Configure method of your Startup.cs:

C#

public class Startup
{
    public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        Configuration = configuration;
    }

    public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }


    public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
    {
        services.AddControllersWithViews();


        //----------------------
        //Add GleamTech to the ASP.NET Core services container.
        services.AddGleamTech();
        //----------------------
    }

    public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
    {
        if (env.IsDevelopment())
        {
            app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
        }
        else
        {
            app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
        }


        //----------------------
        //Register GleamTech to the ASP.NET Core HTTP request pipeline.
        app.UseGleamTech();
        //----------------------


        app.UseStaticFiles();

        app.UseRouting();

        app.UseAuthorization();

        app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
        {
            endpoints.MapControllerRoute(
                name: "default",
                pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
        });
    }

Caution

services.AddGleamTech calls services.AddDistributedMemoryCache and services.AddSession internally and if you need to set a custom cache like services.AddStackExchangeRedisCache or need to call services.AddSession with custom options then place them before services.AddGleamTech so that they become effective.

Caution

The order of app.UseXXX methods is important so app.UseGleamTech should be placed before app.UseStaticFiles, app.UseRouting and app.UseEndpoints (or before app.UseMvc for legacy ASP.NET Core 2.1).

If you are using the new .NET 6 minimal hosting model for ASP.NET Core apps, open Program.cs of your project and insert the marked lines there instead:

C#

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Add services to the container.
builder.Services.AddControllersWithViews();


//----------------------
//Add GleamTech to the ASP.NET Core services container.
builder.Services.AddGleamTech();
//----------------------


var app = builder.Build();

// Configure the HTTP request pipeline.
if (!app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
{
    app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
}


//----------------------
//Register GleamTech to the ASP.NET Core HTTP request pipeline.
app.UseGleamTech();
//----------------------


app.UseStaticFiles();

app.UseRouting();

app.UseAuthorization();

app.MapControllerRoute(
    name: "default",
    pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");

app.Run();

Optionally set DocumentUltimate's global configuration (if overriding a default value is required). For example, you may want to set the license key and the document cache location.

You can specify the configuration in appsettings.json file:

JSON

{
  //Set this property only if you have a valid license key, otherwise do not
  //set it so DocumentUltimate runs in trial mode.
  "DocumentUltimate:LicenseKey": "QQJDJLJP34...",

  //The default CacheLocation value is "~/App_Data/DocumentCache"
  //Both virtual and physical paths are allowed (or a Location instance for one of the supported 
  //file systems like Amazon S3 and Azure Blob).
  "DocumentUltimateWeb:CacheLocation": "~/App_Data/DocumentCache"
}

As you would notice, DocumentUltimate: prefix maps to DocumentUltimateConfiguration.Current and DocumentUltimateWeb: prefix maps to DocumentUltimateWebConfiguration.Current.

Alternatively you can specify the configuration in code, in Configure method of your Startup.cs after app.UseGleamTech call:

C#

//----------------------
//Register GleamTech to the ASP.NET Core HTTP request pipeline.
app.UseGleamTech(() =>
{
    //Set this property only if you have a valid license key, otherwise do not
    //set it so DocumentUltimate runs in trial mode.
    DocumentUltimateConfiguration.Current.LicenseKey = "QQJDJLJP34...";

    //The default CacheLocation value is "~/App_Data/DocumentCache"
    //Both virtual and physical paths are allowed (or a Location instance for one of the supported 
    //file systems like Amazon S3 and Azure Blob).
    DocumentUltimateWebConfiguration.Current.CacheLocation = "~/App_Data/DocumentCache";
});
//--------------------

Create a new View (eg. Index.cshtml) and insert these lines:
C#
```
@using GleamTech.AspNet.Core
@using GleamTech.DocumentUltimate
@using GleamTech.DocumentUltimate.AspNet
@using GleamTech.DocumentUltimate.AspNet.UI

<!DOCTYPE html>
@{
    var documentViewer = new DocumentViewer
    {
        Width = 800,
        Height = 600,
        Document = "~/Documents/Document.docx"
    };
}
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Document Viewer</title>
        @this.RenderHead(documentViewer)
    </head>
    <body>
        @this.RenderBody(documentViewer)
    </body>
</html>
```
This will render a DocumentViewer component in the page which loads and displays the source document ~/Documents/Document.docx. Upon first view, internally DocumentViewer will convert the source document to PDF (used for "Download as Pdf" and also for next conversion step) and then to XPZ (a special web-friendly format which DocumentViewer uses to actually render documents in the browser). So in this case the user will see "please wait awhile..." message in the viewer for a few seconds. These generated PDF and XPZ files will be cached and upon consecutive page views, the document will be served directly from the cache so the user will see the document instantly on second viewing. When you modify the source document, the cached files are invalidated so your original document and the corresponding cached files are always synced automatically. Note that it's also possible to pre-cache documents via DocumentCache.PreCacheDocument method (e.g. when your user uploads a document), see Pre-caching documents for more information.
Tip
Alternatively you can add the namespaces globally in Views/_ViewImports.cshtml to avoid adding namespaces in your pages every time.