INTRODUCTION

SIMPLY PUT, ASP.NET 4.5 is an amazing technology to use to build your web applications! Since the inception of ASP.NET, numerous technologies have been introduced that make it one of the most ambitious web frameworks available today. ASP.NET 4.5 continues to build on the foundation laid by the previous releases of ASP.NET by focusing on the area of developer productivity.

This book covers nearly all of what ASP.NET has to offer. It not only introduces new topics, but it also shows you examples of these new technologies in action. So sit back, pull up that keyboard, and enjoy!

THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF ASP.NET

ASP.NET 4.5 is another major release of the product and builds on the previous releases with additional capabilities. This release continues on a path to make ASP.NET developers the most productive developers in the web space. With each release of ASP.NET, the Microsoft team has focused its goals on developer productivity, administration, and management, as well as performance and scalability. This book focuses on the new additions to ASP.NET and the .NET Framework.

ASP.NET has been around for over 10 years. When it was first released, the focus was to convert the existing web programming model of using VBScript or Jscript to build Active Server Pages to an object-oriented model. To assist in the transition, several server controls were included to encapsulate common functionality.

As time passed, developers began to require more control over the rendered markup. As a result, ASP.NET changed. Newer web paradigms emerged, and technologies, such as ASP.NET MVC, were born. On the other hand, ASP.NET Web Forms continued to control the majority of the development. Thus, the past few releases of ASP.NET placed an emphasis on proper markup rendering with server controls.

However, as the Visual Studio team, like most Microsoft teams, was on a 2- to 3-year release cycle, the ASP.NET team could not keep up with the changes in web technologies. Chapter 1 of this book provides a more comprehensive explanation as to how the ASP.NET team is handling this dilemma by providing more frequent out-of-band (OOB) releases of their products. This chapter also discusses the open source initiatives that the ASP.NET team has. In fact, many of the ASP.NET technologies have been already released as true open source.

It’s a really exciting time for web development on ASP.NET.

WHAT YOU NEED FOR ASP.NET 4.5

You will most likely find that installing Visual Studio 2012 is best to work through the examples in this book. However, you can use Microsoft’s Notepad or WebMatrix and the command-line compilers that come with the .NET Framework 4.5. To work through every example in this book, you need the following:

• Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2008
• Visual Studio 2012 (this installs the .NET Framework 4.5)
• SQL Server 2012, 2008, 2005, or SQL Server Express Edition

The nice thing is that you are not required to have Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) to work with ASP.NET 4.5, because Visual Studio 2012 includes a built-in version of the web server called IIS Express. Moreover, if you do not have a full-blown version of SQL Server, don’t be alarmed. Many examples that use this database can be altered to work with Microsoft’s SQL Server Express Edition, which you can find free on the Internet.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

This book was written to introduce you to the features and capabilities that ASP.NET 4.5 offers, as well as to give you an explanation of the foundation that ASP.NET provides. We assume you have a general understanding of web technologies, such as previous versions of ASP.NET or other web technologies such as PHP. If you understand the basics of web programming, you should not have much trouble following along with this book’s content.

If you are brand new to ASP.NET, be sure to check out Wrox’s Beginning ASP.NET 4.5: In C# and VB by Imar Spaanjaars (John Wiley & Sons, 2012) to help you understand the basics.

In addition to working with web technologies, we also assume that you understand basic programming constructs, such as variables, For Each loops, and object-oriented programming.

You may also be wondering whether this book is for the Visual Basic developer or the C# developer. We are happy to say that it is for both! When the code differs substantially, this book provides examples in both VB and C#. In these cases, any HTML markup is omitted from the C# example for brevity.

WHAT THIS BOOK COVERS

This book explores the 4.5 release of ASP.NET. It covers each major new feature included in ASP.NET 4.5 in detail. The following list tells you something about the content of each chapter.

• Chapter 1, “One ASP.NET” — Extending a Healthy Web Ecosystem: The first chapter may just be one of the most interesting chapters in the book. After 10 years of existence, ASP.NET is one of the most prolific web development technologies. In this chapter, the future plans for ASP.NET are detailed, including a new vision: to have one ASP.NET.
• Chapter 2, “HTML5 and CSS3 Design with ASP.NET”: Visual Studio 2012 places an emphasis on building web applications using HTML5 and CSS3. This chapter takes a close look at how you can effectively work with HTML and CSS to design your ASP.NET applications.
• Chapter 3, “ASP.NET Web Forms Structure”: The third chapter covers the frameworks of ASP.NET applications as well as the structure and frameworks provided for single ASP.NET pages. This chapter shows you how to build ASP.NET applications with Visual Studio 2012. It also shows you the folders and files that are part of ASP.NET. It discusses ways to compile code and shows you how to perform cross-page posting. The chapter ends by showing you easy ways to deal with your classes from within Visual Studio 2012.
• Chapters 4 through 7, “Controls”: These four chapters are grouped together because they all deal with server or user controls. This batch of chapters starts by examining the idea of the server control and its pivotal role in ASP.NET development. In addition to looking at the server control framework, these chapters delve into the plethora of server controls that are at your disposal for ASP.NET development projects. Chapter 4, “ASP.NET Server Controls and Client-Side Scripts,” looks at the basics of working with server controls. Chapter 5, “ASP.NET Web Server Controls,” covers the controls that are part of the latest ASP.NET release. Chapter 6, “Validation Server Controls,” describes a special group of server controls: those for validation. You can use these controls to create beginning-to-advanced form validations. Chapter 7, “User and Server Controls,” describes building your own server controls and using them within your applications.
• Chapters 8 through 13, “Data Access”: This part of the book discusses data access. Nearly all web applications that exist today interact with at least one type of data source. From relational data to JSON, these chapters cover it all. Chapter 8, “Data Binding,” looks at the underlying capabilities that enable you to work with the data programmatically before issuing the data to a control. Chapter 9, “Model Binding,” covers the basics of binding and applying model binding to Web Forms. Chapter 10, “Querying with LINQ,” introduces you to LINQ and how to effectively use this feature in your web applications today. Chapter 11, “Entity Framework,” discusses mapping objects from the database to the objects within your code. Using Visual Studio 2012, you are able to visually design your entity data models. Chapter 12, “ASP.NET Dynamic Data,” describes how dynamic data enables you to quickly and easily put together a reporting and data entry application from your database. Chapter 13, “Working with Services,” outlines the differences between traditional ASMX Web Services, WCF, and the new WebAPI.
• Chapter 14, “Introduction to the Provider Model”: A number of systems are built into ASP.NET that make the lives of developers so much easier and more productive than ever before. These systems are built on an architecture called a provider model, which is rather extensible. This chapter gives an overview of this provider model and how it is used throughout ASP.NET 4.5.
• Chapter 15, “Extending the Provider Model”: After an introduction of the provider model, this chapter looks at some of the ways to extend the provider model found in ASP.NET 4.5. This chapter also reviews a couple of sample extensions to the provider model.
• Chapter 16, “Working with Master Pages”: Master pages are a great capability of ASP.NET. They provide a means of creating templated pages that enable you to work with the entire application, as opposed to single pages. This chapter examines the creation of these templates and how to apply them to your content pages throughout an ASP.NET application.
• Chapter 17, “Site Navigation”: It is quite apparent that many developers do not simply develop single pages — they build applications. Therefore, they need mechanics that deal with functionality throughout the entire application, not just the pages. One of the application capabilities provided by ASP.NET 4.5 is the site navigation system covered in this chapter. The underlying navigation...