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How can I get an HTML tag’s value to send an HTML.Action()

I have these lines of code:
<span
class="close-modal"
onclick="#Html.Action("SaveNotes", "CallCenter", new { activityId = item.callIdKey, noteText = "test1" })">
×
</span>
Notes: <br />
<textarea name="paragraph_text" rows="5" style="width:90%">
#item.NoteText
</textarea>
I would like to replace test1 from the noteText route variable and instead change it to whatever the value in the <textarea> tag is.
Is there an elegant way of doing this without writing a giant block of jQuery code?

#Html.Action() renders a partial view as an HTML string during page processing (on the server side). It doesn't exist any more in the markup, once the page is sent to the browser. You can't do what you are trying to do this way. At the very least, I'm sure you don't want to render a partial view inside the onclick event of your <span> tag.
Why not instead use an HTML helper for the <textarea> tag? Then you can get whatever value the user typed into it on the server code. You'll want to make the form post itself back to the server on the close-modal element:
<span class="close-modal" onclick="$('form').submit()">×</span>
<form method="post" action="#Url.Action("SaveNotes", "CallCenter", new { activityId=item.callIdKey }">
Notes: <br />
#Html.TextArea("noteText", item.NoteText, new { rows="5", style="width:90%" })
</form>
This assumes you have jQuery already (a common assumption with ASP.NET). You may not need the <form> tags if you already have a form on your page.

A #gunr2171 notes in the comments, the only way to dynamically update a link once it's been rendered to the browser is via some form of client-side scripting, typically JavaScript. In your case, I'd recommend doing something like this:
<span
class="close-modal"
data-href-template="#Url.Action("SaveNotes", "CallCenter", new {activityId = item.callIdKey, noteText="{note}"})"
>
×
</span>
Note: As #HBlackorby notes in his answer, you shouldn't be using #Html.Action() here; I assume you meant #Url.Action().
This way, your JavaScript has a template (data-href-template) that it can work against with a clearly defined token ({note}) to replace, instead of needing to parse the URL in order to identify where the previously replaced text is. Otherwise, you potentially end up in a scenario where you type e.g. CallCenter into your <textarea /> and it's now an ambiguous reference that you can't just blindly replace. Or, worse, you type 'a' and it's really ambiguous.
If you are already using jQuery on your site, the actual replacement might be done using something along the lines of:
$(document).ready(function () {
$('span.close-modal').click(function() {
var noteInput = $('textarea[name="paragraph_text"]');
var encodedNote = encodeURI(noteInput.text());
var template = $(this).data("href-template");
var targetUrl = template.replace("{note}", encodedNote);
window.location.href = targetUrl;
});
});
You can also do this without jQuery, obviously—and should if you're not already depending on it. The point is to illustrate that this doesn't necessarily need to be a "giant block of jQuery code". In fact, this could be done in just a few lines—and probably should be. I deliberately broke it out into multiple steps and variables for the sake of readability.

Script to pick up the HTML value of a page? Explanation inside

I am quite the noob at anything other than some HTML, CSS etc, basic website stuff. My javascript is pretty non-existant too. However we were quoted £2,500 by the people who develop our website to add Paypal on the checkout page! They use a fancy 3rd party program which is a standalone software made by themselves that contains all the products etc. We pay monthly to have access to that and make all website changes (such as price, product name etc) in that.
To cut a long story short, I had a look around and found this:
<script src="paypal-button.min.js?merchant=YOUR_MERCHANT_ID"
data-button="buynow"
data-name="My product"
data-amount="1.00"
async
></script>
Now, can I change the data-amount field to pick up what the "value" is on the page in the HTML? That way I can simply just add a button that picks that up. Which would work with paypal.
<div class='basketLabel'>Total Amount To Pay:</div>
<span>£</span>1,038.00</li>
<input type=hidden name='amount' value='1,038.00'>
Basically, how can I get the javascript code to pick up the value from the HTML (or somewhere else). I only have access to the full HTML of the page.

I am not sure how many of these data fields you have on a page but you could write a JS method to dynamically assign the values of the given HTML.
I would start by giving the HTML you're working with some ID's.
<script id="paypalScript" src="paypal-button.min.js?merchant=YOUR_MERCHANT_ID"
data-button="buynow"
data-name="My product"
data-amount="1.00"
async
onload="assignAmount"
></script>
<div class='basketLabel'>Total Amount To Pay:</div>
<span>£</span>1,038.00</li>
<input id="amount" type=hidden name='amount' value='1,038.00'>
Then write a method to execute onload.
function assignAmount(){
var amtElm = document.getElementById('amount');
var scriptElm = document.getElementById('paypalScript');
scriptElm.dataset.amount = amtElm.value;
}
Then attach the method to the onload event of the script element. Putting the script tag below your data field in the HTML should prevent any load issues you might run into.

How to preserve c++ template code in html? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to display raw HTML code on an HTML page
(30 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I'm writing a C++ Style Guide for my company in html/css/javascript. I'm quite irritated with html as it treats anything between < and > as html tag and thus processes them as well. As a result of which my code (which I put in the style guide) doesn't look as such. Here is an example:
<pre>
std::vector<std::string> get_project_names();
template<typename Printable>
void print(Printable const & item);
template<typename FwdIterable, typename Predicate>
FwdIterable find_if(FwdIterable begin, FwdIterable end, Predicate pred);
</pre>
and I want the browser to render it exactly like that, but it doesn't render so, e.g Chrome doesn't show <std::string> part, and IE 8.0 capitalize <std::string> as <STD::STRING> (and all such template codes).
I don't want any kind of interference by html engine. Is there any simple way to achieve what I want? Any polite way to tell the browser to not modify my code?
Note that replacing < with < and > with > would work, but it is cumbersome to write it everytime I write a template code. It also makes my code difficult to read in the source code of the html. So I'm looking for a simple solution.

The notion of a "polite way to to tell the browser to not modify (parse) my code" is precisely what XML's CDATA does. Nothing more, nothing less.
CDATA does not exist in HTML, so there is no way in HTML to treat <std:vector> as anything other than on opening tag for the (non-existent) std:vector element.
The normal way to do this is a server-side transformation. Now if you aren't generating your HTML server-side, and are instead writing it by hand, you can make your life just a dash easier with a client-side transformation like this:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Page Title</title>
<script src="http://coffeescript.org/extras/coffee-script.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<pre><script type="text/coffeescript" >document.write "
std::vector<std::string> get_project_names();
".replace('<','<')
</script></pre>
</body>
</html>
Here I used CoffeeScript because of its multiline string capability which is coming in ES6 for regular JavaScript. It makes it easy to just drop in your code between the boilerplate lines.
Now I know full well even this solution is lacking! If your inserted code contains a " you're out of luck. And it doesn't escape ampersands.
Bottom line is that there is no CDATA, so no "simple" solution exists. A transformation, client-side or server-side, is required.
Have you tried markdown?

I've been dealing with this particular problem for years, and it's always been frustrating. I've always appreciated the simplicity and elegance of Markdown, so I did a little research to see if there was any way to use Markdown to build an HTML document.
Thing is, code samples sometimes involve HTML, yet HTML is the language we're using to write style guides and API documentation, so my thought was that if we wrote the API documentation and style guides in Markdown, we'd eliminate all of the conflicts between HTML and the syntax of other languages.
I found Strapdown.js, which is a library that allows you to create a Web page with pure Markdown. The library then compiles it to HTML and renders it on the page client side. We put together the API documentation for one of our products using this library, and we published it as a GitHub page.
Here's a small, concise example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<title>JavaScript API</title>
<xmp theme="united" style="display:none;">
## Print the name
Print the user's name:
```javascript
function printName(name) {
alert(name);
}
```
</xmp>
<script src="http://strapdownjs.com/v/0.2/strapdown.js"></script>
</html>
Everything inside the <xmp> tags gets compiled to HTML.
Note: The XMP tag has been deprecated for some time as per the Mozilla HTML documentation on XMP. Thus, you may want to either hack the code to make it use PRE or CODE, or you may want to consider using the lower-level Marked library that was used to build Strapdown.js. I filed an issue with the Strapdown.js team.

For that you can use this
<pre>
std::vector<std::string> get_project_names();
template<typename Printable>
void print(Printable const & item);
template<typename FwdIterable, typename Predicate>
FwdIterable find_if(FwdIterable begin, FwdIterable end, Predicate pred);
</pre>
This would be encoded and you'll get the result that you want.
Here is the fiddle for that: http://jsfiddle.net/afzaal_ahmad_zeeshan/7B9xB/
JavaScript code
The JavaScript method of doing this would be simple, you can convert the whole code to a String variable.
As this
var string = "content here";
Then apply this,
string.replace('<','<').replace('>','>');
Convert all the characters and then have then rendered by the Browser.
http://jsfiddle.net/afzaal_ahmad_zeeshan/7B9xB/1/

For my book I used http://markup.su/highlighter/ syntax highlighter. Paste the code into it, generate highlighted code, and paste the latter into the HTML document. Worked pretty well. Here's a fiddle with your code: http://jsfiddle.net/6GTs2/.
Here's your code highlighted for HTML:
<pre style="background:#000;color:#f8f8f8">std::vector<std::string> <span style="color:#89bdff">get_project_names</span>();
<span style="color:#99cf50">template</span><<span style="color:#99cf50">typename</span> Printable>
<span style="color:#99cf50">void</span> <span style="color:#89bdff">print</span>(Printable const & item);
<span style="color:#99cf50">template</span><<span style="color:#99cf50">typename</span> FwdIterable, <span style="color:#99cf50">typename</span> Predicate>
FwdIterable <span style="color:#89bdff">find_if</span>(FwdIterable begin, FwdIterable end, Predicate pred);
</pre>

Is using custom HTML tags and replacing custom tags with outerHTML okay?

Is it alright to define and use custom tags? (that will not conflict with future html tags) - while replacing/rendering those by changing outerHTML??
I created a demo below and it seems to work fine
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en-US">
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="customtags">
<c-TextField name="Username" ></c-TextField> <br/>
<c-NameField name="name" id="c-NameField"></c-NameField> <br/>
<c-TextArea name="description" ></c-TextArea> <br/>
<blahblah c-t="d"></blahblah>
</div>
</body>
<script>
/* Code below to replace the cspa's with the actual html -- woaah it works well */
function ReplaceCustomTags() {
// cspa is a random term-- doesn;t mean anything really
var grs = $("*");
$.each(grs, function(index, value) {
var tg = value.tagName.toLowerCase();
if(tg.indexOf("c-")==0) {
console.log(index);
console.log(value);
var obj = $(value);
var newhtml;
if(tg=="c-textfield") {
newhtml= '<input type="text" value="'+obj.attr('name')+'"></input>';
} else if(tg=="c-namefield") {
newhtml= '<input type="text" value="FirstName"></input><input type="text" value="LastName"></input>';
} else if(tg=="c-textarea") {
newhtml= '<textarea cols="20" rows="3">Some description from model</textarea>';
}
obj.context.outerHTML = newhtml;
}
z = obj;
});
}
if(typeof(console)=='undefined' || console==null) { console={}; console.log=function(){}}
$(document).ready(ReplaceCustomTags);
</script>
</html>
Update to the question:
Let me explain a bit further on this. Please assume that JavaScript is enabled on the browser - i.e application is not supposed to run without javascript.
I have seen libraries that use custom attributes to define custom behavior in specified tags. For example Angular.js heavily uses custom attributes. (It also has examples on custom-tags). Although my question is not from a technical strategy perspective - I fail to understand why it would strategically cause problems in scalability/maintainability of the code.
Per me code like <ns:contact .....> is more readable than something like <div custom_type="contact" ....> . The only difference is that custom tags are ignored and not rendered, while the div type gets rendered by the browser
Angular.js does show a custom-tag example (pane/tab). In my example above I am using outerHTML to replace these custom tags - whilst I donot see such code in the libraries - Am I doing something shortsighted and wrong by using outerHTML to replace custom-tags?

I can't think of a reason why you'd want to do this.
What would you think if you had to work on a project written by someone else who ignored all common practices and conventions? What would happen if they were no longer at the company to find out why they did something a certain way?
The fact that you have to just go through with JavaScript to make it work at all should be a giant red flag. Unless you have a VERY good reason to, do yourself a favor and use the preexisting tags. Six months from now, are you going to remember why you did things that way?

It may well work, but it's probably not a good idea. Screen readers and search engines may have a hard/impossible time reading your page, since they may not interpret the JavaScript. While I can see the point, it's probably better to use this template to develop with, then "bake" it to HTML before putting it on the server.

Razor syntax in JavaScript code block

I want to know if it is a good practice to use razor in JavaScript code. For example:
<script type="text/javascript">
var variable = #some.Id
</script>
Or it's better to create hidden value and then take it with JavaScript, like this?
<input type="hidden" id="someId" value"#some.Id" />
<script type="text/javascript">
var variable = $('#someId').val();
</script>
EDIT:
#{
var formVariables = serializer.Serialize(new
{
id = Model.Id,
name = Model.Name,
age = Model.Age
});
<input type="hidden" id="header_variables" value="#formVariables"/>
<script type="text/javascript" src = "/Scipts/..."></script>
}
Is this good solution?

I personally would go with an extension of the 2nd option and create a seperate .js file. The reason being, if you delegate work out to a 3rd party to take care of the jquery/javascript parts of the UI, then they need not have any sight of the backend functionality.
There are a variety of ways to use html5 attributes (i.e. data-attribute='foo') on the inputs which would allow you to 'decorate' your inputs with a cargo of properties which could be parsed inside the external .js file.
A very brief example:
in your view:
<input type='text' id='myId' data-action='#Url.Action("MyAction")' class='myClass' />
in your .js file:
var targetAction = $('#myId').attr('data-action');
this gives complete separation between the .js and the views. It does require a degree of planning of course.
Hope this helps

Razor will be parsed at server-side and replaced by relevant output. Therefore, in my opinion it is totally indifferent, if you place it in Javascript or HTML - at client side only the output value will be visible. Thus, in the above example I would choose the first option (place it directly in JS), since you will not have the otherwise unnecessary hidden input field.

I don't think there is a correct answer to this question; only pros and cons.
Pros of using Razor in Javascript
Script is bound to your view model; so model changes will get picked up automatically, and errors will get caught at compile time.
Cons
Script is mixed with markup, contrary to web design best practices (put script at the bottom so that it will never break your page).
Script cannot be compiled/minified, because, again, it's mixed in with your markup.