AutoCrudAdmin Documentation

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Installation
• Usage
• Customization
  • Customizing Grid
  • Customizing Form Fields
  • GenerateFormControls Methods
  • Adding Custom Actions
  • Validating Entities
• Navigation Menu
• Changing Layout
• Authentication
• Handling Files
• Overriding Views
• Customizing AutoCrudAdminController
• Troubleshooting

Overview

AutoCrudAdmin is a library that provides automatic CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) screens and API endpoints for entity classes in an ASP.NET Core application.

Installation

Install the AutoCrudAdmin NuGet package in your ASP.NET Core project.

dotnet add package AutoCrudAdmin

Usage

1. Call services.AddAutoCrudAdmin() in ConfigureServices() in Startup.cs.

2. Call app.UseAutoCrudAdmin() in Configure() in Startup.cs.

3. You have CRUD views and operations for each entity in your DbContexts.

4. You can customize the default behavior by creating a controller that inherits from AutoCrudAdminController<TEntity> where TEntity is the entity class.

That's it! AutoCrudAdmin will automatically generate CRUD screens and API endpoints for the entities.

The CRUD screens will be available under /ControllerName like /Products, /Customers etc. The API endpoints will be at /ControllerName/Create, /ControllerName/Edit etc.

Customization

AutoCrudAdmin provides options to customize the generated CRUD screens and API behavior.

Customizing Grid

The grid view that lists entities on the Index screen can be customized by overriding methods in the controller.

For example, to explicitly show certain columns:

public class ProductsController : AutoCrudAdminController<Product>  
{

  protected override IEnumerable<string> ShownColumnNames => 
    new[] { "Name", "Price" };

}

To add a custom column:

protected override IEnumerable<CustomGridColumn<Product>> CustomColumns =>
  new[]     
  {        
    new CustomGridColumn<Product>      
    {         
      Name = "Discount",
      ValueFunc = p => p.CalculateDiscount().ToString("0.##") 
    }
  };

See Customizing Grid for more details and options.

Customizing Form Fields

Similarly, the forms for Create and Edit actions can be customized via methods like:

• ShownFormControlNames
• HiddenFormControlNames
• ShownFormControlNamesOnCreate

For example:

protected override IEnumerable<string> HiddenFormControlNames {
  new[] { "Description" }   
};

Hides the Description field.

See Customizing Forms for more details and options.

GenerateFormControls Methods

The GenerateFormControls methods are the main way to customize the form fields on Create and Edit pages.

See the GenerateFormControls Methods section for details on customizing these methods.

Adding Custom Actions

Additional controller actions can be added and will show alongside the standard CRUD actions.

See Adding Custom Actions.

Validating Entities

To perform validation, override the EntityValidators method:

protected override IEnumerable<Func<Product, Product, ValidatorResult>> EntityValidators {

  (existing, updated) => {
    if (updated.Quantity < 0) {
      return ValidatorResult.Error("Invalid quantity"); 
    }
    return ValidatorResult.Success();
  }

}; 

See Validating Entities for more details.

Navigation Menu

Generate a menu with links to CRUD screens using the NavHelper:

@foreach (var item in NavHelper.GetNavItems()) {
  <li>
    <a asp-controller="@item">@item</a>
  </li>
}

Changing Layout

The default layout is _AutoCrudAdmin_Layout. To use a custom layout:

services.AddAutoCrudAdmin(options => {
  options.LayoutName = "_CustomLayout";
});

Authentication

Add authentication by providing IAutoCrudAuthFilter implementations:

options.Authorization.Add(new MyAuthFilter()); 

See Authentication for examples.

Handling Files

The FormFilesContainer class passes files from forms to API endpoints.

Files are available in AdminActionContext.Files.

See Handling Files for more details.

Overriding Views

Override default AutoCrudAdmin views by placing view files in:

/Views/AutoCrudAdmin/

Customizing AutoCrudAdminController

The AutoCrudAdminController base class has many virtual members that can customize CRUD behavior:

Customize Grid

Customize grid columns:

protected override IEnumerable<CustomGridColumn<TEntity>> CustomColumns {..}

Add row actions:

protected override IEnumerable<GridAction> CustomActions {..}

Customize Forms

Show/hide form fields:

protected override IEnumerable<string> ShownFormControlNames {..}   
protected override IEnumerable<string> HiddenFormControlNames {..}

See API Reference for full customization options.

Troubleshooting

Some common issues:

• Ensure DbContext registered properly in ConfigureServices()
• For navigation menu, controller must inherit from AutoCrudAdminController
• Check for conflicts with other packages