A First Look at ASP.NET 2.0

ASP.NET v 2.0: The Beta Version

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 late 2004 or early 2005 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!

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.

Microsoft is releasing the first public Beta of version 2.0 of the .NET Frameworks in mid 2004. There will probably be another Beta release later in 2004, and followed by a final release. However, there are unlikely to be any significant changes between the first Beta release and the finished product, as this phase of the development cycle concentrates on moving from "code complete" status though fine-tuning and bug fixing to final release.

This book covers the first Beta release, and as such 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. However, the principles and general syntax are unlikely to differ by anything more than minor details.

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 the Beta release of version 2.0 of the .NET Framework release. 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. 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

· Internationalization

· Adding Mobility Support

· Compilation and Deployment

· Development Tools

· Summary

Chapter 2 - Tools and Architecture

· Visual Studio 2005

· Project-less Development

· The Solution Explorer

· The Toolbox

· The Design Window

· The Design Surface

· The Server Explorer

· Visual Inheritance

· Built-in Administration

· Code Separation

· Dynamic Compilation

· New Folders for Dynamic Compilation

· Using the \Code Folder in Visual Studio 2005

· Folder Hierarchy

· Pre-compilation of Applications

· In-place Pre-compilation

· Pre-compilation for Deployment without Source

· Pre-compilation for Deployment with Source

· The Compilation API

· 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 a Data Source Control

· The DetailsView Control

· Data Source Controls

· Types of Data Source Controls

· The SqlDataSource Control

· The AccessDataSource Control

· The Base Classes for the Data Source Controls

· The XmlDataSource Control

· The DataSetDataSource Control

· The ObjectDataSource Control

· Possible Forthcoming Data Source Controls

· Summary

Chapter 4 - The GridView,DetailsView,and FormView 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 FormView Control

· Declaring a FormView Control

· Declaring Templates for a FormView Control

· The New and Simplified Data Binding Syntax

· The ASP.NET 1.0 Syntax for Data Binding

· Simplified ASP.NET 2.0 Syntax for Nonhierarchical Data Binding

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

· Two-Way Data Binding Syntax for Templated Controls

· New and Simplified Data Binding Syntax Options

· Building Data-Bound Pages with Visual Studio 2005

· Summary

Chapter 5 - Master Pages and 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

· Setting the Master Page Programmatically

· Accessing the Master Page

· Navigation

· Site Maps

· Site Map Providers

· Site Map Configuration Files

· Using a Site Map File

· Site Maps in Depth

· Showing a Navigation Path

· SiteMapPath Events

· The SiteMapNode Object

· Accessing the Site Map at Runtime

· Navigation Controls

· Summary

Chapter 6 - Security

· Membership

· Membership Providers

· Setting Up Membership

· Creating a New User

· Validating User Credentials

· Retrieving a User

· The MembershipUser Class

· Updating a User’s Properties

· Deleting a User

· Security Server Controls

· The CreateUserWizard Control

· The Login Control

· The Login Status Control

· The Login View Control

· The Password Recovery Control

· Role Manager

· Setting Up Role Manager

· Creating Roles

· Adding Users to Roles

· Returning a User’s Roles

· Checking whether a User Is in a Role

· Removing Users from Roles

· Deleting a Role

· Role Caching

· Cookieless Forms Authentication

· Enabling Cookieless Forms Authentication

· The Web Site 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 Users’ Personalization Data

· Setting Up the Databases for Personalization

· Data Access Optimizations

· Membership and Personalization

· Anonymous Identification

· Anonymous Personalization

· Migrating from Anonymous to Authenticated Users

· The Provider Design Pattern

· Configuration

· Implementation of the ProviderBase Base Class

· Implementation of the Feature-Specific Interface

· Writing a Personalization Provider

· Configuring Profile Properties

· Themes

· Themes and Skins

· Customization Themes and Stylesheet Themes

· Global Themes

· Creating Themes

· Setting a Page Customization Theme

· Setting a Page Stylesheet Theme

· Setting a Skin

· Applying Skins to All Controls

· Applying Skins to Dynamically Created Controls

· Allowing User Selection of Skins

· 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

· An Overall View of the Example Page

· The Events Zone Declaration

· The Web Part User Control Declarations

· Catalog Zones

· Editor Zones

· Page Design and Web Part Editing

· Help Features for Web Parts

· Connecting Web Parts

· Declaring Static Connections

· Editing Web Part Connections

· Working with Web Parts in Code

· The WebPartManager Class

· The Zone Classes

· The GenericWebPart Class

· Web Parts and Visual Studio 2005

· Summary

Chapter 9 - Pages, Posting, Resources and Validation

· Cross-Page Posting

· Posting to Another Page

· Accessing the Previous Page

· Transferring to Another Page in Code

· Detecting Cross-Page Posting

· The Page Life Cycle

· Posting to Another Application

· Validation

· The ValidationGroup Property

· The SetFocusOnError Property

· The ValidateEmptyText Property

· URL Mapping

· Client-Side Script Features

· Registering Script Blocks

· Client Callbacks

· New Form Capabilities

· Form Focus

· Client Click Events

· Submitting Disabled Controls

· Changes to Page Directives

· The Page Directive

· The Master Directive

· The MasterType Directive

· The PreviousPageType Directive

· Changes to Page Headings

· xHTML Compliance The Page and Control Life Cycle

· Site and Page Counters

· Using Site Counters

· Configuring Site and Page Counters

· Resources and Localization

· Code-Free Localization

· What Expression Type to Use, and When?

· User-Selectable Localization

· Programmatic Access of Resources

· Extensibility

· Web Resources

· Summary

Chapter 10 - The New Browser and Mobile Device Controls

· Programming for Different Types of Devices

· The Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit

· The Unified Control and Adapter Architecture

· Browser Definitions

· The BrowserCapabilities Class

· Page Design and Device Support

· Device Filters

· Summary of the New Controls in ASP.NET 2.0

· Standard Form- and Page-Based Controls

· Rich Controls

· Login and Authentication Controls

· Navigation Controls and Counters

· Data Access and Display Controls

· Mobile Device Controls

· The New Controls in Detail

· New Controls within the HtmlControls Namespace

· The BulletedList Control

· The DynamicImage Control

· The Image Generation Service

· The ImageMap Control

· The FileUpload Control

· The HiddenField Control

· The MultiView and View Controls

· The Wizard Control

· Controls and Attributes Specific to Mobile Devices

· The ContentPager Control

· The PhoneLink Control

· The SoftKeyLabel Attribute

· Mobile Browser Emulators

· Summary

Chapter 11 - Enhancements to Existing Controls

· Summary of New Control Features

· Accessibility Improvements

· Input Control Enhancements

· Changes to the Forms and Postback Architecture

· Validation Controls and Validation Groups

· Data Source Control Integration

· Mobile Device Support

· Site and Page Counter Integration

· List Control Enhancements

· Themes Integration

· Tables of Control Enhancements

· Enhancements to Existing Controls in the HtmlControls Namespace

· Enhancements to Existing Controls in the WebControls Namespace

· Details of Individual Control Enhancements

· The AdRotator Control

· The Button, LinkButton, and ImageButton Controls

· The CheckBox Control

· The DataGrid Control

· The HyperLink Control

· The Image Control

· The Label Control

· The List and ListItem Controls

· The Literal Control

· The Panel Control

· The Table, TableHeaderCell, and TableCell Controls

· Summary

Chapter 12 - 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 2005 Dependencies

· The CacheDependency Class

· Summary

Chapter 13 - Configuration and Administration

· Application Configuration Files

· Changed Sections