ASP.NET 2.0 Why Care?

Recently i had been to the Microsoft Technology Roadshow, which covered two areas Mobility and Web Platform, I opted for the Web Platform sessions which talked more about ASP.NET 2.0 and Developing AJAX-style web applications with Atlas, here is my learning from the same.


ASP.NET 2.0 Why Care? - Janakiram MSV

This was an excellent session by Janakiram, using one example he gave breifing about quite a lot of new features introduced in asp.net 2.0.

• Most of the developers have been complaining about less controls to play with in asp.net so with 2.0 they have introduced 50+ Controls.
  
  
• One of the talked about feature is the ASP.Net 2.0 two way databinding, if you recollect the old visual basic days where a grid control used to allow updates to the database after changes to the data in the grid, a smiliar functionality is provided in 2.0 where in controls can be bound to data not only for displaying but also posting back the changed data to the base. This is also termed as updates to the database through "In-place" editing on the control.
  
  
  
• With ASP.NET Web.Config controls the configuration of your website, before 2.0 web.config used to be configured using the visual studio editor as a xml file where in we used to add and remove xml tags to configure the website, but with ASP.NET 2.0 there is a new tab introduced in IIS where in all the configuration for your websites web.config can be specified using the IIS panel.
  
  
• Having IIS installed was one of the prerequisites of developing ASP.NET websites, ASP.NET 2.0 comes with an inbuilt webserver, so there is a definite goodbye to PWS.
  
  
• Membership API [Authentication and authorization]
  The ASP.NET 2.0 provides easy ways out for Authentication and authorization, most of us require the two basic forms on any website the User Login and the User Registration forms, with the Membership API this functionality can be implemented with minimal code.
  
  
• Portal Framework [Create webparts]
  Anyone who has worked with Sharepoint knows the use of webparts, Webparts are the building blocks for an easy customizable web, Webparts can be somewhere compared to web user controls with more customization with UI, Menus and placing., ASP.NET 2.0 now has the Webparts Framework which allows creating webparts, communication between webparts.
  
  
• Master Page
  ASP.NET 2.0 allows you to define a Master Page [Master Template] which defines the basic layout of your website further changes in the Master pages are applied to overall site without any code change in the other pages, In classic ASP this was somehow achieved by using Includes, This is also termed as Visual Inheritance.
  
  
• Personalization
  If you have used Amazon.com, one of the features that the site provides is remembering you as a user and showing you your selections, more like the page you've created with all the items you have looked for, very cool personalization feature, ASP.NET 2.0 provies the Personalization API which allows you to do the same with minimal effort, this feature can be used to store user preferences offer different types of discounts on different products depending upon the users preferences.
  
  
• Web search
  If you have ever used the Google API, well a similar thing is available for MSN Search.
  
  
• Caching in ASP.NET extends further with 2.0 to link caching with SQL server directly, more like data fetching from the server will be done only if data from the table changes else cached data will be flushed on the page.
  

ASP.NET 2.0 "ATLAS"
I Create a ASP.NET 2.0 page with a form submit, to post data to the server and make changes depending upon response to the same, how about all this without a round trip to the server, yeah thats what AJAX is all about Client - Server talk without round trip to the server, basically through Javascript and XML, and ATLAS makes working with AJAX simpler, using ATLAS with ASP.NET 2.0 you can make some very interactive Javascript enabled UI, ATLAS provides a set of Javascript libraries whcich can be used to perform client server talks without page refreshes/submits. Some very good examples were shown by Nikhil Kothari during his presentation, like connecting to a webservice and showing weather information for different cities without a single page refresh.
Well a few things to talk about ATLAS

• Framework to implement client - server communication using AJAX without round trip to the server as a post.
  
• Includes a set of client and server based controls
  
• Webservices bridge to call from client side instead of server side
  
• Wrapper on top of javascript
  
• Inbuilt Atlas script manager for
  
  
  
  1. Partial rendering
     
  2. Triggers collection to specify which panel/control gets updated
     
  
  
• Auto complete depending upon whats typed get the suggested word
  
• Drag overlay extender -> simply drag and place panels anywhere on the page.
  
• Javascript progress bar to show execution process instead of the web browser progress bar from the status bar.
  

References:

http://atlas.asp.net
http://nikhilk.net
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com
http://microsoft.com/seminar