ASP.NET Web/Browser Based Active Directory Phonebook

This program performs an LDAP ANR search of Active Directory for whatever string is in the name field when search button is clicked. Then it displays the results in a gridview controll.

Wow! I think this vb.net web application turned out great! As an added benefit; it's an awesome example of how you can pull off really cool apps without knowing a lick about what you're doing. OK I'm a pretty good VB.Net backyard programmer, but nobody's going to hire me to write code. Anyhow I get this idea, "Let's try and take the example I used on my website rkirchhof.com last week (Example 1) and attempt to port it to the web". Well I spent a couple of nights searching the net for anything that could show me how. I found lots of stuff, much of it in C#, but I couldn't figure it out. I asked a buddy who gives me lots of VB.net tips and he confessed that he too found it to be very challenging. Then on my 3rd night of fruitless searching I stumbled on this ASP.NET GridView control demo. It turned out to be pure GOLD! Within an hour or two I had a proof-of-concept and a day later the program I present here.

Basically the demo showed me how to feed data to a gridview control from memory or from a data base. I started with a new project and selected ASP.NET Web Application (Which proved to be pretty awesome on it's own before I added a stitch of code) then I cut out or commented out the parts I didn't need from the demo, pasted in the stuff I choose to keep, added a few columns, hid a column and a few controls, added a textbox, a button and a check box, pasted in the search routine from Ex.1 and BANG! New program.

Using the code

Running it in debug mode and getting it to run on a web server were two entirely different things, I followed the instructions I found here ASP.NET Web Application Project Deployment Overview and eventully got it working. You can check out a working demo here. I'd rather have had an active directory it could search for you, but this is enough to show you the basic idea.

Note: For purposes of the Web-Demo I converted it back into a Database app. The AD version, provided in the download, works the same way except for the edit/Delete and Add features.

Anyhow enjoy the code, I believe it will work in any environment where there's a Windows Domain Controller although you'll need to publish it to a webserver with .Net 4.0 Use the Microsoft link I provided above for more guidence. You may also wish to customize the column labels or the fields pulled from AD to suit your own organization. Here's a list of Active Directory User Attributes you can use as a guide. ENJOY!
Open with Visual Studio and press F5. Enter a name in the field provided click search. The functions of the check boxes are self explanatory. You may customize as much as you'd like then publish it to a webserver.

Be sure to check RKirchhof.Com for updates.

http://rkirchhof.com/download/phonebook.jpg