A First Look at ASP.NET 2.0

 

 

 

Dynamic Web page generation techniques have been around for many years, but ASP.NET took the world by storm when it was released in February 2002. The advent of a new page and postback architecture, server controls, and the whole .NET Framework made it easier to build Web sites and Web applications that performed better while reducing the amount of work required by the developer.

 

So, it comes as no surprise to see a new version of .NET, and with it version 2.0 of ASP.NET starting to appear on the horizon. Sometime in 2004 we should see the final release of version 2.0 of the .NET Framework, together with new versions of Visual Studio and other tools. In the meantime, Microsoft are following their usual policy of involving developers as early in the process as possible, giving them the chance to provide feedback on the new product.

 

So, as the final release of version 2.0 is still some way off, why would you be interested in it now? The simple answer is, of course, that — as a developer — you need to keep abreast of what's going on in your industry. And more than that, being aware of what's coming in the future might well influence what you do today, in the overall design of your applications and the preparations and plans you are making for upcoming products and applications.

 

This book will help by introducing you to the new features that will be in version 2.0, and how they can benefit your Web site and Web application development. And it may be that you don't actually intend to install the early releases of version 2.0, but you just want to know more about what it offers. No problem - that's OK with us as well!

 

Important Note: Code Downloads, Versions and Release Schedules

Before you read any further, it's important that you understand what this book covers, and how it relates to the future and final releases of .NET version 2.0.

 

The current release of the .NET Frameworks is a "Technical Preview" or "Alpha" version, based on the second of three milestones specified during development of v 2.0. There will probably also be two or more "Beta" releases, starting early in 2004, and followed by a final release.

 

This book covers the "Technical Preview" release, but also discusses the plans for changes and extensions to the features in the Beta releases that will follow. What this effectively means is that the class interface listings and code samples you see here cannot be guaranteed to work in exactly the same way right through to the final release version.

 

Therefore, in order to make this book as useful as possible we are maintaining a Web site that details changes throughout the Beta cycle and up to final release of v 2.0. This site is at http://www.daveandal.net/dotnet2beta/. You'll also find news about release dates as it becomes available, more code examples, etc. You can also download the code for the book, and subsequent updates, from the same place.

 

What This Book Covers

This is not just a reference book, but instead is a feature-packed exploration of version 2.0 of ASP.NET. It covers the changes between ASP.NET 1.x and ASP.NET 2.0, describing how it makes it even easier to build efficient, attractive and interactive Web sites and Web applications using the new features in ASP.NET, while considerably reducing developer effort and code requirements.

 

The first chapter presents an overview of the new version, and also lays out the roadmap for the remainder of the book. The following chapters discuss how the common requirements of developers have been addressed, starting with the ubiquitous need to access data from your pages; and then progressing through to a detailed look at the new configuration and management features that version 2.0 provides.

 

Along with the final release of .NET 2.0 we will, of course, see a new version of Visual Studio.NET and other tools. While we do include some details of the new Visual Studio .NET, this is not an area that the book concentrates on. Many developers will be writing ASP.NET pages using other tools (including, we suspect, a text editor) while Visual Studio .NET is still under development.

 

What You Need To Use This Book

The main thing you need to use this book is one of the "Alpha" or "Beta" releases of version 2.0 of the .NET Framework release. The first "Technical Preview" or "Alpha" release is due late in 2003, and the book is based on this version.

 

Other than that, you'll need something to transfer your creative efforts into ASP.NET files on disk. We still prefer a text editor, though early experiments with the new version of Visual Studio .NET suggest that Windows NotePad will soon be seeing the light of day a lot less often in the future. Once it is available, in Beta or release version, we strongly recommend you try it out. However, it doesn't really matter which tool or editor you use as long as it can generate text files with the .aspx file extension.

 

Finally, you'll need to be prepared to change the way you think about building code for your Web pages, as in many cases you don't actually have to write any code at all in version 2.0. See Chapter 1 for more details, and get ready to be more productive!

 

 

Chapter 1 - An Introduction to ASP.NET 2.0

·          What's Wrong with ASP.NET 1.x?

·          New Features

·          Templates for a consistent look and feel

·          Styles for Controls

·          Securing your Site

·           Personalizing your Site

·          Creating Portals

·          Setting Up and Managing your site

·          Using Images on your Site

·          Using Data on your Site

·          Adding Mobility Support

·          Compilation and Deployment

·          Development Tools

·          Summary

 

Chapter 2 - Tools and Architecture

·          Visual Studio .NET

·          Project-less Development

·          The Solution Explorer

·          The Toolbox

·          The Design Window

·          The Data Explorer

·          Visual Inheritance

·          Built-in Administration

·          Code Separation

·          Dynamic Compilation

·          New Folders for Dynamic Compilation

·          Using the Code folder in Visual Studio .NET

·          Folder Hierarchy

·          Pre-compilation of applications

·          In-Place Pre-Compilation

·          Pre-compilation for deployment without source

·          Pre-compilation for deployment with source

·          Compilation API

·          Compilation Summary

·          Summary

 

Chapter 3 - Data Source Controls and Data Binding

·          Code-Free Data Binding

·          Displaying Data with a Data Source Control

·          Adding Row Sorting Capabilities

·          Adding Row Paging Capabilities

·          Built-in Small-screen and Mobile Device Support

·          Linking Page Controls and Data Source Control Parameters

·          Editing Data with a GridView and Data Source Control

·          The DetailsView Control

·          Data Source Controls

·          Types of Data Source Controls

·          The SqlDataSource Control

·          The AccessDataSource Control

·          The XmlDataSource Control

·          The DataSetDataSource Control

·          The ObjectDataSource Control

·          Possible Forthcoming Data Source Controls

·          Summary

 

Chapter 4 - The GridView and DetailsView Controls

·          The GridView Control

·          An Overview of the GridView Control

·          Declaring a GridView Control

·          Defining the Columns in a GridView Control

·          Using a Mixture of Column Types

·          The DetailsView Control

·          Using a Stand-alone DetailsView Control

·          Creating a Master-Detail Page with GridView and DetailsView Controls

·          Inserting and Editing Rows with a DetailsView Control

·          The DetailsView Control Interface

·          The New and Simplified Data Binding Syntax

·          The ASP.NET 1.0 Syntax for Data Binding

·          Simplified ASP.NET 2.0 Syntax for Non-hierarchical Data Binding

·          Simplified ASP.NET 2.0 Syntax for Hierarchical (XML) Data Binding

·          Summary of the Simplified Data Binding Syntax

·          Building Data-bound Pages with Visual Studio .NET

·          Summary

 

Chapter 5 - Master Pages and Site Navigation

·          Master Pages in Detail

·          Creating Master Pages

·          Using a Master Page

·          Default Content

·          Nested Master Pages

·          Master Page Configuration

·          Device Specific Master Pages

·          Event Ordering

·          Accessing the Master Page

·          Navigation

·          Site Maps

·          Site Map Providers

·          Site Map Configuration File

·          Using a SiteMap File

·          Site Maps in Depth

·          Showing a Navigation Path

·          SiteMapPath Events

·          SiteMap Nodes

·          Accessing the SiteMap at Run Time

·          Summary

 

Chapter 6 - Security

·          Membership

·          Membership Providers

·          Setting up Membership

·          Creating new Users

·          Vaildating User Credentials

·          Getting a user we created

·          MembershipUser

·          Updating the User’s Properties

·          Deleting a User

·          Security Server Controls

·          Login Control <asp:Login runat="server">

·          Login Status Control <asp:LoginStatus runat="server" />

·          Login View Control <asp:LoginView runat="server" />

·          Password Recovery Control <asp:PasswordRecovery runat="server" />

·          Role Manager

·          Setting up Role Manager

·          Role Manager Configuration

·          Creating Roles

·          Adding Users to Role

·          Returning roles the user belongs to

·          Check if the user is in a role

·          Removing users from roles

·          Deleting a role

·          Role Caching

·          Cookieless Forms Authentication

·          Enabling Cookieless Forms Authentication

·          Web-based Administration Tool

·          The Home Page

·          The Security Page

·          Security Management

·          Other Pages

·          Summary

 

Chapter 7 - Personalization and Themes

·          Storing and Retrieving User Personalization Data

·          Configuring Personalization

·          Accessing other user’s Personalization Data

·          Setting up the Databases for Personalization

·          Data Access Optimizations

·          Membership and Personalization

·          Anonymous Identification

·          Anonymous Personalization

·          Migrating from Anonymous to Authenticated Users

·          Provider Design Pattern

·          Configuration

·          Implementation of the IProvider interface

·          Implementation of the specific feature interface

·          Writing a Personalization Provider

·          Themes

·          Themes and Skins

·          Global Themes

·          Creating Themes

·          Setting a Page Theme

·          Using Personalization for Themes

·          Collections of Controls

·          Disabling Themes

·          Adding Themes to a Site

·          Enabling Themes in Custom Controls

·          Summary

 

Chapter 8 - Web Parts and the Portal Framework

·          The ASP.NET 2.0 Portal Framework

·          The Goals of the Portal Framework

·          About the Web Parts Framework

·          A Simple Web Parts Example Page

·          The Page in Outline

·          The "Events" Zone Declaration

·          The "Corporate Information" Zone Declaration

·          The "EditorZone" Declaration

·          The "CatalogZone" Declaration

·          The "Controls" Zone Declaration

·          Changing the WebPartDisplayMode

·          Working with Web Parts in Code

·          The WebPartManager Class

·          The WebPartZone Class

·          The WebPart Class

·          Web Parts and Visual Studio .NET (Venus)

·          Summary

 

Chapter 9 - Pages, Posting and Validation

·          Cross-Page Posting

·          Posting to Another Page

·          Accessing the Previous Page

·          Transferring to Another Page in Code

·          Detecting Cross Page Posting

·          Page Lifecycle

·          Validation

·          The ValidationGroup Property

·          Wizards

·          URL Mapping

·          Client-side Script Features

·          Form Focus

·          Client Click Events

·          Registering Script Blocks

·          Client Call Backs

·          Changes to Page directives

·          The Page Directive

·          The Master Directive

·          The Control Directive

·          The PreviousPage Directive

·          The Image Directive

·          Page and Control Lifecycle

·          Summary

 

Chapter 10 - Mobile Device Support

·          Programming for Different Types of Device

·          The Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit

·          The Unified Control and Adapter Architecture

·          Browser Definitions

·          The BrowserCapabilities Class

·          Page Design and Device Support

·          Device Filters

·          Controls and Attributes Specific to Mobile Devices

·          The System.Web.UI.WebControls.Pager Control

·          The PhoneLink Control

·          The SoftKeyLabel Attribute

·          Mobile Browser Emulators

·          Summary

 

Chapter 11 - Caching

·          Enabling Database Cache Invalidation

·          Enabling a Database for SQL Cache Invalidation

·          Enabling a Table for SQL Cache Invalidation

·          Listing Tables Enabled for SQL Cache Invalidation

·          Invalidating the ASP.NET Cache

·          Configuration

·          Invalidating Output Cached Pages

·          The SqlCacheDependency Class

·          Creating SQL Server 7 and 2000 Dependencies

·          Creating SQL Server Yukon Dependencies

·          CacheDependency

·          Summary

 

Chapter 12 - Control Enhancements

·          Summary of the New Controls in ASP.NET 2.0

·          New Controls Summarized by Type

·          The New Form and Page Based Controls in ASP.NET 2.0

·          The BulletedList Control

·          The FileUpload Control

·          The HiddenField Control

·          The Table Control in More Detail

·          The DynamicImage Control

·          The MultiView and View Controls

·          The ImageMap Control

·          Changes to the Existing ASP.NET Controls

·          Changes to the Button, LinkButton and ImageButton Controls

·          Changes to the Hyperlink Control

·          Changes to the Image Control

·          Changes to the Label Control

·          Changes to the ListItem Control

·          Changes to the Literal Control

·          Changes to the Panel Control

·          Changes To The BannerAd Control

·          Site and Page Counters

·          Using Site Counters

·          Configuring Site and Page Counters

·          Web Resources

·          Summary

 

Chapter 13 - Configuration and Administration

·          Application Configuration File

·          Changed Sections

·          New Sections

·          State Management

·          Control State

·          Page State Persistence

·          Session State Plugability

·          Management API

·          IIS Integration

·          Management Classes

·          Summary

 

©2003 - Stonebroom Limited, England