Getting Started: Document Editor with ASP.NET Core

Bjoern Meyer

September 13, 2023

This article shows how to use the TX Text Control ASP.NET document editor within a .NET 6 application in Visual Studio 2022.

Getting Started: Document Editor with ASP.NET Core

Prerequisites

There are two ways to evaluate the TX Text Control Document Editor. You can either host your own backend by downloading the trial version of TX Text Control .NET Server, or by creating a trial access token to use a hosted backend, valid for 30 days:

Download Trial Version
Setup download and installation required.

Create Trial Access Token
No download and local installation required.

Creating the Application

Make sure that you downloaded the latest version of Visual Studio 2022 that comes with the .NET 6 SDK.

In Visual Studio 2022, create a new project by choosing Create a new project.
Select ASP.NET Core Web App (Model-View-Controller) as the project template and confirm with Next.
Choose a name for your project and confirm with Next.
In the next dialog, choose .NET 6 (Long-term support) as the Framework and confirm with Create.

Adding the NuGet Package

In the Solution Explorer, select your created project and choose Manage NuGet Packages... from the Project main menu.

Package Source

Select either Text Control Offline Packages or nuget.org as the Package source. Packages in the official Text Control NuGet profile are frequently updated.

In case you are using a Trial Access Token, please choose nuget.org.

Browse for txtextcontrol.web and Install the latest version of the TXTextControl.Web package.

Configure the Application

Trial Access Token Users

In case you are using a Trial Access Token, skip step 6 and continue with step 7.

Open the Program.cs file located in the project's root folder.

At the very top of the file, insert the following code:
```
using TXTextControl.Web;
```
Add the following code after the entry app.UseStaticFiles();:
```
// enable Web Sockets
app.UseWebSockets();

// attach the Text Control WebSocketHandler middleware
app.UseTXWebSocketMiddleware();
```

Adding the Control to the View

Find the Index.cshtml file in the Views -> Home folder. Replace the complete content with the following code to add the document editor to the view:

@using TXTextControl.Web.MVC
    
@{
    var sDocument = "<html><body><p>Welcome to <strong>Text Control</strong></p></body></html>";
}

@Html.TXTextControl().TextControl(settings => {
    settings.UserNames = new string[] { "Tim Typer" };
}).LoadText(sDocument, TXTextControl.Web.StringStreamType.HTMLFormat).Render()

<input type="button" onclick="insertTable()" value="Insert Table" />

<script>
    function insertTable() {
        TXTextControl.tables.add(5, 5, 10, function(e) {
          if (e === true) { // if added
            TXTextControl.tables.getItem(function(table) {
              table.cells.forEach(function(cell) {

                cell.setText("Cell text");

              });
            }, null, 10);
          }
        })
    }
</script>

Trial Access Token Users

In case you are using a Trial Access Token, replace the content with the following code.
@using TXTextControl.Web.MVC
        
@Html.TXTextControl().TextControl(settings => {
        settings.WebSocketURL = "wss://backend.textcontrol.com/api/TXWebSocket?access-token=addYourTokenHere"
}).Render()
Replace addYourTokenHere with your actual Trial Access Token.

Compile and start the application.

ASP.NET

Integrate document processing into your applications to create documents such as PDFs and MS Word documents, including client-side document editing, viewing, and electronic signatures.