The Angry Coder

Few days before one of my fellow comes up with this challenge, the requirement is good but by using it you will lose control over two thing1. Navigate URL2. Impression PriorityIf you are ready to compromise on these two then the solution is here. Please bear in mind that this is not how to of Ad rotator control. It is related to advance use. To learn basics please visitAs you all know that Ad Rotator control accept an xml file to show advertisement. the scehma of the xml file is as follow. 

 <Advertisements>

 <Ad>

  <ImageUrl>/images/expand_blue.jpg</ImageUrl>

  <NavigateUrl>www.aghausman.net</NavigateUrl>

  <AlternateText>expand_blue.jpg</AlternateText>

  <Impressions>1</Impressions>

</Ad>

 <Advertisements>

 

So to make it work dynamically, I mean by mapping to a folder we need to write an xml file each time the page load. (You can use some alternative approaches as well) First, we write to set the Adrotator on out aspx page.

<asp:AdRotator ID="AdRotator1" runat="server" /> 

 Then to generate a file using any folder I write the following function

private void bindFiles()        {            string strPath = "/images/"; //Folder Path            DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(Server.MapPath(strPath));            if (di.Exists)            {                string filename = Server.MapPath("/upload/temp.xml");                               XmlTextWriter objtw = new XmlTextWriter(filename, System.Text.UTF8Encoding.UTF8);                objtw.WriteStartDocument();                objtw.WriteStartElement("Advertisements");                               FileInfo[] objFile = di.GetFiles("*.jpg"); //you can extract multiple format of images                foreach (FileInfo f in objFile)                {                    objtw.WriteStartElement("Ad");                    objtw.WriteStartElement("ImageUrl");                    objtw.WriteString(strPath + f.Name);                    objtw.WriteEndElement();                                       objtw.WriteStartElement("NavigateUrl");                    objtw.WriteString("#"); // Passing # means no action                    objtw.WriteEndElement();                                              objtw.WriteStartElement("AlternateText");                    objtw.WriteString(f.Name);                    objtw.WriteEndElement();                           objtw.WriteStartElement("Impressions");                    objtw.WriteString("1"); //As we don't know of any priotiry, keep it 1 for every one                    objtw.WriteEndElement();                           objtw.WriteEndElement();                }                       objtw.WriteEndElement();                objtw.WriteEndDocument();                               objtw.Flush();                objtw.Close();            }        } 

   And on the load event of page write the following stuff. 

if  (!Page.IsPostBack) {bindFiles();AdRotator1.AdvertisementFile = "/upload/temp.xml"; }

That's the whole story.