ASP.NET 2.0: A Developeramp;#039;s Notebook [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Chapter 1. What's New?

Within a few short years, ASP.NET has become one of the favorite
tools of web applications developers, and now it's
about to undergo its second major upgrade. Microsoft is making major
improvements to the product based on feedback from its millions of
customers and the company's own experience in
developing and deploying web applications. Moreover, the market for
web development tools has become increasingly competitive with the
rise of open source PHP and Macromedia Flash, both of which have
steadily gained market share.

ASP.NET 2.0 ships with
several new
controls to make the life of a web application developer easier. In
ASP.NET 2.0, there are now new controls that help you to perform data
access, site navigation, login, and personalization using Web Parts.

ASP.NET 2.0 supports some useful additions to its Page framework such
as visual inheritance, technically known as Master Pages. Besides Master
Pages, ASP.NET 2.0 also supports
"theming" through Themes and Skins,
allowing you to maintain a consistent look-and-feel for your web
sites. Another noteworthy feature in ASP.NET is the improved support
for localization, which reduces the amount of work you need to do to
internationalize your web applications.

Behind the various new controls in ASP.NET 2.0 lie the
foundation services and APIs that do the heavy lifting needed to
support the controls. For example, behind the new Login controls
you'll find the new collection of Membership APIs,
which perform such tasks such as user authentication, registration of
new users, etc. Besides using the new controls, you can directly make
use of these APIs in code.

Table 1-1 summarizes some of most
important new
features of ASP.NET 2.0.

Table 1-1. Summary of new features in ASP.NET 2.0

Controls

Page Framework

Services and APIs

Data Controls

Includes controls that simplify the connection to data sources, as
well as the new GridView and DetailsView controls.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 4.

Master Pages

Visual page inheritance for Web Forms.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 2.

Membership

The core service for user management, such as user creation,
deletion, authentication, retrieval of passwords, etc.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 5.

Login Controls

Contains controls that make web site user management and user
authentication easy and efficient.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 5.

Themes and Skins

Maintain consistent look-and-feel for the entire site by using Skins
definitions grouped by themes.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 8.

Role Management

Manages the assignment of roles to users, such as add user to role,
delete user from role, enquire if user is in role, etc.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 5.

Web Parts

Provides the infrastructure for creating Web Parts.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 3.

Localization

Simplify the steps needed to globalize and localize your web
applications.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 8.

Site Maps

Supports the retrieval of site information, as well as display of
site maps.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 2.

Navigation Controls

Contains controls that display site information and menus.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 2.

Compilation

Supports dynamic compilation of business logic without the need for
explicit recompilation when the code is changed. Also supports
automatic generation of Web Services proxy class using WSDL.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 6.

Profile

Supports the personalization of Web sites through the Profile object.

We will discuss this topic in Chapter 7.

Additional Standard Controls

Contains controls such as ImageMap, FileUpload, MultiView, and
TreeView.

We will discuss these controls in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

This chapter starts with a walkthrough of the steps you now follow to
create a web application with Visual Studio 2005, and then dives into
a few of the coolest new controls and control functionality.

Tip: If the professional editions of Visual Studio 2005 are too expensive
for you, try the Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition, a
lightweight, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn development tool focused
exclusively on web development. It is primarily targeted at hobbyist
developers and students who may find the cost of Visual Studio 2005
prohibitive. At the time of this writing, Microsoft has not yet
announced pricing for the Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
but is widely expected to sell this version for a nominal amount.