ASP.NET Core & Angular 2 Master-Detail Grid with Web API & EF 1.0.1

Introduction

In this article, let’s see how to create our own ASP.NET Core, Angular 2 Master Detail HTML Grid using Template pack, Entity Framework 1.0.1, and Web API to display Master and Detail data from the database to our Angular2 and ASP.NET Core web application.

Kindly read my previous articles which explain in depth about getting started with the ASP.NET Core Template Pack.

• ASP.NET Core Angular 2 EF 1.0.1 Web API Using Template Pack
• Getting Started With ASP.NET Core Template Pack

In this article, let’s see

• Creating sample database and Student Master and Detail Table in SQL Server to display in our web application.
• How to create ASP.NET Core Angular 2 Starter Application (.NET Core) using Template pack.
• Creating EF, DBContext Class, and Model Class.
• Creating Web API.
• Creating our first component TypeScript file to get Web API JSON results using HTTP Module.
• Creating our first component HTML file to bind the data to the Master and Detail HTML Grid.

This article will explain how to create a Master /Detail Table and bind the Master-related details in an inner HTML table to show the output as a Master/Detail Grid. Here, in this article, we have used the Student Master and Student Detail relation to show the Master/Detail Grid. In Student Master, we store student ID, Name, Email, Phone, and Address. In Student Details, we store the students' final exam results for displaying Student Major, Studying Year with Term, and Grade details.

Here, in the below image, we can see that when the user clicks on the Student ID “2”, then the next details Grid is displayed to show student results in detail by Major, Year, Term, and Grade.

Here, we are displaying student details by each student ID.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have installed all the following prerequisites on your computer. If not, then download and install them all, one by one.

1. First, download and install Visual Studio 2015 with Update 3 from this link.
2. If you have Visual Studio 2015 and have not yet updated with update 3, download and install the Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 from this link.
3. Download and install .NET Core 1.0.1
4. Download and install TypeScript 2.0
5. Download and install Node.js v4.0 or above. I have installed V6.9.1
6. Download and install Download ASP.NET Core Template Pack viz file

Code Part

Step 1. Create a Database and Table

We will create a Student Master and Student Detail table to be used for the Master and Detail Grid data binding.

The following is the script to create a database, table, and sample insert query. Run this script in your SQL Server. I have used SQL Server 2014.

USE MASTER
GO

-- 1) Check
--   
-- for the Database Exists. If the database exists then drop and create new DB   
IF EXISTS (SELECT [name] FROM sys.databases WHERE [name] = 'StudentsDB')
    DROP DATABASE StudentsDB
GO

-- CREATE DATABASE StudentsDB
GO

USE StudentsDB
GO

-- 1) //////////// StudentMasters   
IF EXISTS (SELECT [name] FROM sys.tables WHERE [name] = 'StudentMasters')
    DROP TABLE StudentMasters
GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[StudentMasters] (
    [StdID] INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
    [StdName] [varchar](100) NOT NULL,
    [Email] [varchar](100) NOT NULL,
    [Phone] [varchar](20) NOT NULL,
    [Address] [varchar](200) NOT NULL
)
-- insert sample data to Student Master table   
INSERT INTO [StudentMasters] ([StdName], [Email], [Phone], [Address])
VALUES ('Shanu', '[email protected]', '01030550007', 'Madurai, India')
INSERT INTO [StudentMasters] ([StdName], [Email], [Phone], [Address])
VALUES ('Afraz', '[email protected]', '01030550006', 'Madurai, India')
INSERT INTO [StudentMasters] ([StdName], [Email], [Phone], [Address])
VALUES ('Afreen', '[email protected]', '01030550005', 'Madurai, India')
SELECT * FROM [StudentMasters]

IF EXISTS (SELECT [name] FROM sys.tables WHERE [name] = 'StudentDetails')
    DROP TABLE StudentDetails
GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[StudentDetails] (
    [StdDtlID] INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
    [StdID] INT,
    [Major] [varchar](100) NOT NULL,
    [Year] [varchar](30) NOT NULL,
    [Term] [varchar](30) NOT NULL,
    [Grade] [varchar](10) NOT NULL
)
INSERT INTO [StudentDetails] ([StdID], [Major], [Year], [Term], [Grade])
VALUES (1, 'Computer Science', 'First Year', 'First Term', 'A')
INSERT INTO [StudentDetails] ([StdID], [Major], [Year], [Term], [Grade])
VALUES (1, 'Computer Science', 'First Year', 'Second Term', 'B')
INSERT INTO [StudentDetails] ([StdID], [Major], [Year], [Term], [Grade])
VALUES (1, 'Computer Science', 'Second Year', 'First Term', 'C')
INSERT INTO [StudentDetails] ([StdID], [Major], [Year], [Term], [Grade])
VALUES (2, 'Computer Engineer', 'Third Year', 'First Term', 'A')
INSERT INTO [StudentDetails] ([StdID], [Major], [Year], [Term], [Grade])
VALUES (2, 'Computer Engineer', 'Third Year', 'Second Term', 'A')
INSERT INTO [StudentDetails] ([StdID], [Major], [Year], [Term], [Grade])
VALUES (3, 'English', 'First  Year', 'First Term', 'C')
INSERT INTO [StudentDetails] ([StdID], [Major], [Year], [Term], [Grade])
VALUES (13, 'Economics', 'First  Year', 'First Term', 'A')

SELECT * FROM StudentDetails

Step 2. Create ASP.NET Core Angular 2 application

After installing all the prerequisites listed above and the ASP.NET Core Template, click Start >> Programs >> Visual Studio 2015 >> Visual Studio 2015, on your desktop. Click New >> Project. Select Web >> ASP.NET Core Angular 2 Starter. Enter your project name and click OK.

After creating ASP.NET Core and Angular 2 applications, wait for a few seconds. You will see that all the dependencies are automatically restored.

We will be using all this in our project to create, build, and run our Angular 2 with ASP.NET Core Template Pack, Web API, and EF 1.0.1.

Step 3. Creating Entity Framework
 

Add Entity Framework Packages

To add our Entity Framework Packages in our ASP.NET Core application, open the Project.JSON file, and in dependencies, add the below line too.

"Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer": "1.0.1",
"Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools": "1.0.0-preview2-final"

When we save the project.json file, we can see the Reference has been restored.

After a few seconds, we can see the Entity Framework package has been restored and all references have been added.

Adding Connection String

To add the connection string with our SQL connection, open the “appsettings.json” file. Yes, this is a JSON file and this file looks like the below image by default.

In this appsettings.json file, add our connection string.

"ConnectionStrings": {
    "DefaultConnection": "Server=YOURDBSERVER;Database=StudentsDB;user id=SQLID;password=SQLPWD;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=true;"
}

Note. Change the SQL connection string as per your local connection.

Next, we create a folder named “Data” to create our model and DBContext class.

Creating Model Class for Student Master

We can create a model by adding a new class file in our Data Folder. Right-click the Data folder and click Add > Class. Enter the class name as StudentMasters and click "Add".

Now, in this class, we first create a property variable and then add studentMaster. We will be using this in our WEB API Controller.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

namespace Angular2ASPCORE.Data
{
    public class StudentMasters
    {
        [Key]
        public int StdID { get; set; }

        [Required]
        [Display(Name = "Name")]
        public string StdName { get; set; }

        [Required]
        [Display(Name = "Email")]
        public string Email { get; set; }

        [Required]
        [Display(Name = "Phone")]
        public string Phone { get; set; }

        public string Address { get; set; }
    }
}

Creating Model Class for Student Detail

We can create a model by adding a new class file in our Data folder. Right-click the Data folder and click Add >Class. Enter the class name as StudentDetails and click Add.

In this class, we first create a property variable and then add StudentDetails. We will be using this in our Web API Controller.

public class StudentDetails 
{   
    [Key]
    public int StdDtlID { get; set; }
    
    [Required]
    [Display(Name = "StudentID")]
    public int StdID { get; set; }
    
    [Required]
    [Display(Name = "Major")]
    public string Major { get; set; }
    
    [Required]
    [Display(Name = "Year")]
    public string Year { get; set; }
    
    [Required]
    [Display(Name = "Term")]
    public string Term { get; set; }
    
    public string Grade { get; set; }
}

Creating Database Context

DBContext is an Entity Framework Class for establishing a connection to database. We can create a DBContext class by adding a new class file in our Data folder. Right-click the Data folder and click Add > Class. Enter the class name as StudentContext and click Add.

In this class, we inherited DbContext and created Dbset for our studentMasters and StudentDetails table.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;

namespace Angular2ASPCORE.Data
{
    public class studentContext : DbContext
    {
        public studentContext(DbContextOptions<studentContext> options) : base(options) { }
        public studentContext() { }
        
        public DbSet<StudentMasters> StudentMasters { get; set; }
        public DbSet<StudentDetails> StudentDetails { get; set; }
    }
}

Startup. CS

Now, we need to add our database connection string and provider as SQL Server. To add this, we add the below code in Startup.cs file under the ConfigureServices method.

// Add Entity framework.
services.AddDbContext<studentContext>(options => options.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")));

Step 4. Creating Web API

To create our WEB API Controller, right-click the Controllers folder. Click "Add" and click "New Item".

Click ASP.NET on the right side > Click Web API Controller Class. Enter the name as “StudentMastersAPI.cs” and click "Add".

In this, we are using only the "Get" method to get all the student results from the database and bind the final result using Angular 2 to an HTML file.

Here, in this Web API, we get both Student Master, Student Details, and Student Details loaded by condition student ID.

[Produces("application/json")]
[Route("api/StudentMastersAPI")]
public class StudentMastersAPI : Controller 
{
    private readonly studentContext _context;

    public StudentMastersAPI(studentContext context) 
    {
        _context = context;
    }

    // GET: api/values
    // For Student Master
    [HttpGet]
    [Route("Student")]
    public IEnumerable<StudentMasters> GetStudentMasters() 
    {
        return _context.StudentMasters;
    }

    // GET: api/values
    // For Student Detail
    [HttpGet]
    [Route("Details")]
    public IEnumerable<StudentDetails> GetStudentDetails() 
    {
        return _context.StudentDetails;
    }

    // For Student Detail with studentid to load by student ID
    // GET api/values/5
    [HttpGet]
    [Route("Details/{id}")]
    public IEnumerable<StudentDetails> GetStudentDetails(int id) 
    {
        return _context.StudentDetails.Where(i => i.StdID == id).ToList();
    }
}

To test it, we can run our project and copy the get method API path. Here, we can see our API path forgotten.

API/StudentMastersAPI/Student

Run the program and paste the above API path to test our output.

To get the Student Details by Student ID. Here, we can see all the Student Details for Student ID=1 have been loaded.

API/StudentMastersAPI/Details/1

Working with Angular2

We create all Angular 2-related app modules, Services, Components, and HTML templates under the ClientApp/App folder.

We create a “students” folder under the app folder to create our TypeScript and HTML files for displaying Student details.

Step 5. Creating our First Component TypeScript

Right-click on the Students folder and click on "Add new Item". Select Client-side from the left side. Select the TypeScript file name of the file “students.component.ts” and click Add.

In the students.component.ts file, we have three parts.

1. import part
2. component part
3. class for writing our business logic.

First, we import Angular files to be used in our component. Here, we import HTTP for using HTTP client in our Angular 2 component.

In the component, we have a selector and template. Selector is used to give a name for this app in our html file. We use this selector name to display our HTML page.

In the template, we give our output HTML file name. Here, we will create an html file as “students.component.html”.

Export Class is the main class where we do all our business logic and a variable declaration that is used in our component template. In this class, we get the API method result and bind the result to the Student array.

Here, we first get all the Student Master data from Web API to bind in our HTML page. We have created one more function named “getStudentsDetails” to which we pass the Student ID to load only the selected Student ID-related data from Student Detail tables. We call this function from the button click of each Student Master.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { Http } from "@angular/http";

@Component({
    selector: 'students',
    template: require('./students.component.html')
})
export class StudentsComponent {
    public student: StudentMasters[] = [];
    public studentDetails: StudentDetails[] = [];
    myName: string;
    activeRow: string = "0";

    constructor(public http: Http) {
        this.myName = "Shanu";
        this.getStudentMasterData();
    }

    getStudentMasterData() {
        this.http.get('/api/StudentMastersAPI/Student').subscribe(result => {
            this.student = result.json();
        });
    }

    getStudentsDetails(StudID) {
        this.http.get('/api/StudentMastersAPI/Details/' + StudID).subscribe(result => {
            this.studentDetails = result.json();
        });
        this.activeRow = StudID;
    }
}

//// For Student Master
export interface StudentMasters {
    stdID: number;
    stdName: string;
    email: string;
    phone: string;
    address: string;
}

// For Student Details
export interface StudentDetails {
    StdDtlID: number;
    stdID: number;
    Major: string;
    Year: string;
    Term: string;
    Grade: string;
}

Step 6. Creating our First Component HTML File

Right-click on the Students folder and click on "Add New Item". Select Client-side from the left side and select HTML file. Name the file “students.component.html” and click "Add".

Write the below HTML code to bind the result to our HTML page. Here, we have first created an HTML Table for loading the Student Master data with the Detail Button.

On the Detail button click, we load the Student Details for selected students and bind the result according to the table row.

<h1>Angular 2 with ASP.NET Core Template Pack, WEB API and EF 1.0.1</h1>
<hr/>
<h2>My Name is: {{myName}}</h2>
<hr/>
<h1>Students Details :</h1>
<p *ngIf="!student"><em>Loading Student Details please Wait ! ...</em></p>
<table class='table' style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border:2px #6D7B8D; padding:5px; width:99%; table-layout:fixed;" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" *ngIf="student">
    <tr style="height: 30px; background-color:#336699; color:#FFFFFF; border: solid 1px #659EC7;">
        <td width="80" align="center">
        </td>
        <td width="80" align="center">Student ID</td>
        <td width="240" align="center">Student Name</td>
        <td width="240" align="center">Email</td>
        <td width="120" align="center">Phone</td>
        <td width="340" align="center">Address</td>
    </tr>
    <tbody *ngFor="let StudentMasters of student">
        <tr>
            <td align="center" style="border: solid 1px #659EC7; padding: 5px; table-layout: fixed;">
                <button (click)="getStudentsDetails(StudentMasters.stdID)" style="background-color:#334668; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:large; width:80px; border-color:#a2aabe; border-style:dashed; border-width:2px;"> Detail </button>
            </td>
            <td align="center" style="border: solid 1px #659EC7; padding: 5px; table-layout: fixed;">
                <span style="color:#9F000F">{{StudentMasters.stdID}}</span>
            </td>
            <td style="border: solid 1px #659EC7; padding: 5px; table-layout: fixed;">
                <span style="color:#9F000F">{{StudentMasters.stdName}}</span>
            </td>
            <td style="border: solid 1px #659EC7; padding: 5px; table-layout: fixed;">
                <span style="color:#9F000F">{{StudentMasters.email}}</span>
            </td>
            <td align="center" style="border: solid 1px #659EC7; padding: 5px; table-layout: fixed;">
                <span style="color:#9F000F">{{StudentMasters.phone}}</span>
            </td>
            <td style="border: solid 1px #659EC7; padding: 5px; table-layout: fixed;">
                <span style="color:#9F000F">{{StudentMasters.address}}</span>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr *ngIf="activeRow==StudentMasters.stdID">
            <td colspan="6" style="border: solid 1px #659EC7; padding: 5px; table-layout: fixed;">
                <table class='table' style="background-color:#ECF3F4; border:2px #6D7B8D; padding:5px; width:99%; table-layout:fixed;" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" *ngIf="studentdetails">
                    <tr style="height: 30px; background-color:#659EC7; color:#FFFFFF; border: solid 1px #659EC7;">
                        <td width="100" align="center">
                            <Strong>Student Detail --></Strong>
                        </td>
                        <td width="240" align="center">Major</td>
                        <td width="240" align="center">Year</td>
                        <td width="120" align="center">Term</td>
                        <td width="340" align="center">Grade</td>
                    </tr>
                    <tbody *ngFor="let stddetails of studentdetails">
                        <tr>
                            <td width="100" align="center">
                            </td>
                            <td width="240" align="center">{{stddetails.major}}</td>
                            <td width="240" align="center">{{stddetails.year}}</td>
                            <td width="120" align="center">{{stddetails.term}}</td>
                            <td width="340" align="center">{{stddetails.grade}}</td>
                        </tr>
                    </tbody>
                </table>
            </td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

Step 7. Adding Students Navigation menu

We can add our newly created Student Details menu to the existing menu.

To add our new navigation menu, open the “navmenu.component.html” under the nav menu menu. Write the below code to add our navigation menu link for students. Here, we have removed the existing "Count and Fetch" menu.

<li [routerLinkActive]="['link-active']">
    <a [routerLink]="['/students']">
        <span class='glyphicon glyphicon-th-list'>
        </span> Students
    </a>
</li>

Step 8. App Module

App Module is the root for all files and we can find the app.module.ts under ClientApp\app to import our students component.

import { studentsComponent } from './components/students/students.component';

Next in @NgModule add studentsComponent

In routing add our students path.

The code will be looks like this

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { RouterModule } from '@angular/router';
import { UniversalModule } from 'angular2-universal';
import { AppComponent } from './components/app/app.component'
import { NavMenuComponent } from './components/navmenu/navmenu.component';
import { HomeComponent } from './components/home/home.component';
import { FetchDataComponent } from './components/fetchdata/fetchdata.component';
import { CounterComponent } from './components/counter/counter.component';
import { studentsComponent } from './components/students/students.component';

@NgModule({
    bootstrap: [AppComponent],
    declarations: [
        AppComponent,
        NavMenuComponent,
        CounterComponent,
        FetchDataComponent,
        HomeComponent,
        studentsComponent
    ],
    imports: [
        UniversalModule, // Must be first import. This automatically imports BrowserModule, HttpModule, and JsonpModule too.
        RouterModule.forRoot([{
            path: '',
            redirectTo: 'home',
            pathMatch: 'full'
        }, {
            path: 'home',
            component: HomeComponent
        }, {
            path: 'counter',
            component: CounterComponent
        }, {
            path: 'fetch-data',
            component: FetchDataComponent
        }, {
            path: 'students',
            component: studentsComponent
        }, {
            path: '**',
            redirectTo: 'home'
        }])
    ]
})
export class AppModule {}

Step 9. Build and run the application

Build and run the application. You can see that our Students Master/Detail page will be loaded with all Student, Master, and Details information.

Note. First, create the database and table in your SQL Server. You can run the SQL Script from this article to create the StudentsDB database and StudentMasters and StudentDetails Tables. Also, don’t forget to change the connection string in “appsettings.json”.