Ilaro.Admin

A code-first admin panel generator for ASP.NET MVC, inspired by Django's admin site.

Point it at your POCO classes and get a fully functional admin UI — CRUD operations, filtering, search, file uploads, image handling, change tracking, and more — without writing a single view or controller.

Note: This project is no longer actively maintained. It was built in 2014 as a personal/open-source project and is preserved here as a portfolio piece. The architecture and patterns remain a solid reference for convention-over-configuration library design in .NET.

Key Features

• Automatic CRUD — full Create, Read, Update, Delete from POCO classes with zero boilerplate
• Dual configuration — attribute-based or fluent API, your choice:

  // Attributes
  [Verbose(GroupName = "Product")]
  public class Product
  {
      [Required, StringLength(40)]
      public string ProductName { get; set; }
  
      [File(".jpg", ".png"), ImageSettings(200, 200)]
      public string Photo { get; set; }
  }
  
  // Fluent
  public class ProductConfig : EntityConfiguration<Product>
  {
      public ProductConfig()
      {
          PropertiesGroup("Main", x => x.ProductName, x => x.UnitPrice);
          Property(x => x.ProductName, p => { p.Required(); p.StringLength(40); });
      }
  }

• Advanced filtering & search — string, numeric, date range, boolean, enum, and foreign entity filters
• Relationship handling — one-to-many dropdowns, many-to-many dual listbox editors, automatic FK detection
• File & image uploads — type/size validation, automatic thumbnail generation, multiple size variants
• Change tracking — audit trail recording user, timestamp, and operation type for every change
• Soft delete — mark records as deleted without physical removal, with restore capability
• Concurrency control — optimistic locking to prevent lost updates in multi-user scenarios
• Role-based authorization — pluggable AuthorizeAttribute support
• Single-DLL deployment — views pre-compiled via RazorGenerator, static assets embedded in the assembly

Architecture

src/
  Ilaro.Admin.Core     Core logic: entities, services, validation, data access
  Ilaro.Admin          ASP.NET MVC Area with controllers, views, and frontend assets
  Ilaro.Admin.Unity    Unity DI container integration
  Ilaro.Admin.Ninject  Ninject DI container integration
  Ilaro.Admin.Autofac  Autofac DI container integration
samples/
  Ilaro.Admin.Sample   Northwind database demo app
tests/
  Ilaro.Admin.Tests    Unit tests (xUnit + FakeItEasy)

Design decisions worth noting:

• Interface-driven service layer — IEntityService, IRecordsService, IValidatingEntities, IHandlingFiles, etc. All business logic is behind interfaces, making the codebase fully testable and DI-friendly.
• Areas-based isolation — the admin panel lives in its own ASP.NET MVC Area, preventing any namespace or routing collisions with the host application.
• Convention over configuration — automatic primary key detection, foreign key inference, sensible defaults for every property type. You configure only what deviates from convention.
• Modified Massive ORM — stripped down to read-only operations for tighter control over SQL generation, with custom dynamic SQL building for filters and sorting.
• Template system — pluggable display, editor, and filter templates per data type (DateTime pickers, markdown editors, WYSIWYG, numeric spinners, image previews, etc.).
• Multi-container DI support — separate NuGet packages for Unity, Ninject, and Autofac so consumers aren't forced into a specific container.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	.NET Framework 4.5, ASP.NET MVC 4
Data access	Modified Massive (micro-ORM), dynamic SQL generation
DI containers	Unity, Ninject, Autofac (separate packages)
Frontend	Bootstrap 3, jQuery, Chosen, Summernote, Bootstrap-DateTimePicker, Dual Listbox
Images	ImageResizer
View engine	RazorGenerator (pre-compiled views)
Testing	xUnit, FakeItEasy
Build	Cake, AppVeyor CI
Package	NuGet

Quick Start

Install via NuGet (with your preferred DI container):

Install-Package Ilaro.Admin.Unity
Install-Package Ilaro.Admin.Ninject
Install-Package Ilaro.Admin.Autofac

Register in Global.asax:

// 1. Register routes (before default routes)
AdminInitialise.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes, prefix: "Admin");
AdminInitialise.RegisterResourceRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);

// 2. Register your entities
Entity<Customer>.Add();
Entity<Product>.Add();

// 3. Set up authorization
Admin.Authorize = new AuthorizeAttribute { Roles = "Admin" };

// 4. Initialize (connection string name, optional if you have only one)
Admin.Initialise("NorthwindEntities");

Navigate to ~/Admin and your admin panel is ready.

For detailed configuration options, see the wiki: Entity configuration | Property configuration

License

MIT — Robert Gonek