With the latest multi-platform release of the NuGet package, TXTextControl.Web can now be used in ASP.NET Core Web Applications. This article shows how to use a model as the data excerpt file for the document editor and how to merge the actual data into the created template in an HTTP Post method in the MVC controller.

Loading Data from Model

Consider the following, very simple model Customer.cs:

public class Customer
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Firstname { get; set; }
    public string Company { get; set; }
}

In the controller, a dummy data object is created and stored in a list to be used as the view model.

public IActionResult Index()
{
    List<Customer> lDummyData = new List<Customer>();

    lDummyData.Add(new Customer()
        {
            Company = "Text Control, LLC",
            Firstname = "Tim",
            Name = "Typer"
        });

    return View(lDummyData);
}

In the view itself, the excerpt file is loaded from a model using the LoadDataFromModel method.

@using TXTextControl.Web
@using TXTextControl.Web.MVC

@model List<TXCoreBackend.Models.Customer>

<div class="row">

    <div class="col-lg-12 editor">
        @Html.TXTextControl().TextControl(settings =>
        {
            settings.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
        }).LoadDataFromModel(Model).Render()
    </div>

</div>

Based on the data in this model, the reporting tab merge field drop-downs are filled with available merge field names:

Server-Side Merge

On clicking the button Merge Document Server-Side, the document is saved using saveDocument, encapsulated in an object and posted to the HTTP Post controller method MergeDocument:

function mergeDocument() {

    $("#infobox").text("Merging document...");

    TXTextControl.saveDocument(
        TXTextControl.StreamType.InternalUnicodeFormat, function (e) {

        $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: "/Home/MergeDocument",
            contentType: "application/json",
            data: JSON.stringify({
                Document: e.data
            }),
            success: function (content) {
                TXTextControl.loadDocument(
                    TXTextControl.StreamType.InternalUnicodeFormat, 
                    content, 
                    function () {
                        $("#infobox").text("Merged and loaded");
                    });
            }
        })

    })
}

In the controller method, the template is loaded into a ServerTextControl instance, merged with data using MailMerge, saved back and returned to the client.

[HttpPost]
public string MergeDocument([FromBody] MergeDocument MergeDocument)
{
    // create some merge data rows
    List<Customer> lActualData = new List<Customer>() { 
        new Customer()
        {
            Company = "Text Control, LLC",
            Firstname = "Tim",
            Name = "Typer"
        },
        new Customer()
        {
            Company = "Text Control GmbH",
            Firstname = "Bernie",
            Name = "Bold"
        }
    };

    byte[] baResults;

    // create a new ServerTextControl instance to connect to MailMerge
    using (TXTextControl.ServerTextControl tx = new TXTextControl.ServerTextControl())
    {
        tx.Create();

        // load the template
        tx.Load(Convert.FromBase64String(MergeDocument.Document),
            TXTextControl.BinaryStreamType.InternalUnicodeFormat);

        // connect MailMerge
        MailMerge mm = new MailMerge();
        mm.TextComponent = tx;

        // merge data into template
        mm.MergeObjects(lActualData);

        // save results
        tx.Save(out baResults, TXTextControl.BinaryStreamType.InternalUnicodeFormat);
    }

    return Convert.ToBase64String(baResults);
}

Loading the Results

After a successful merge process, the returned document is loaded into the document editor:

TX Text Control .NET Server can be used to create ASP.NET Core Web Applications including the fully-featured document editor and the backend functionality including MailMerge capabilities.