Date: November 27, 2003
Coming up in ASP.NET v2.0...
The new version of ASP.NET, v2.0, currently known as 'Whidbey', has recently been released as an alpha product. Learn some of the expected features of the new product.
Date: November 27, 2003
The new version of ASP.NET, v2.0, currently known as 'Whidbey', has recently been released as an alpha product. It's going to be a while therefore before the release version is available but I thought DotNetJohn readers might like to learn of some of the expected features of the new product.
We all know that ASP.NET provided a mini-revolution in the web development world. What more does Microsoft have in store for us? What’s wrong with ASP.NET v1.1 that needs fixing?
1. Reduction in code required by up to 70%
ASP.NET v1.0/1.1 was a step in the right direction but further improvements have been made.
2. Increased developer productivity
Related to 1 but also lots more of those nice web controls and similar productivity aids.
3. Single control set for all devices
Better, more logical, support for mobile devices.
4. (Even) better performance!
5. Better tool support for hosting companies
There's a new remote configuration tool.
6. Better tool support for configuration and administration
i.e. a GUI integrated with IIS for configuring applications, etc.
Let's break down some of these features and look at them in a little more detail.
There are a few changes and additions to simplify compilation and deployment. Basically these are features of VS.NET which have been included within ASP.NET itself, e.g. automatic compilation of satellite code, pre-compilation and globalisation resource support.
Allowing GUI and web based access to machine.config and web.config files. In addition there is a management API providing programmatic configuration abilities.
A new set of controls aimed at both reducing the amount of code and programmer knowledge required for using ADO.NET, e.g. DataSource controls, for specifying data sources.
Additionally data binding syntax has been simplified and data binding itself has been extended.
As you'd expect VS.NET is due for an accompanying overhaul. First glance shows no startling new features ... mainly support for the new ASP.NET v2.0 features plus improved debugging functionality.
Two new server controls:
ImageMap control: if you’re familiar with HTML you can guess what this is.
DynamicImage: designed to render images suitable to the calling device.
We had the mobile internet toolkit in v1.0 which became mobile controls in v1.1 but in v2.0 this segregation of mobile devices is removed with support transferred to the mainstream controls making life simpler for developers. All controls are now built on a control adapter architecture, where there is an adapter for each specific device. The architecture supports adapter specific attributes where necessary. You can also provide templates for specific devices.
The Membership API (see security below) works in conjunction with the new Personalisation features including the profile concept where you can store user specific features to a current profile with supporting inbuilt functionality to manage the associated attributes.
Deriving from the success of the IBuySpy portal as well as sharepoint server and Outlook web parts come these new features. The supported task is the provision of a consistent look and feel whilst also allowing user customisation of both style and content.
In ASP.NET 2.0 web parts become the underlying technology for portal creation based around key controls: WebPartZone and WebPart. WebPartZone identifies areas of a page where content can be changed. WebPart identifies the part within that zone, which can be of various types, and come with supporting functionality we shan't go into here.
While forms authentication was a great addition to ASP.NET there was limited supporting infrastructure. This has been improved. The following controls have been added: Login, LoginStatus, LoginName, LoginView, PasswordRecovery.
So, for example, there is no need to write a login form for your site – you simply place a Login control on the page. In addition ASP.NET 2.0 introduces a new Membership API which abstracts out some of the detail of providing custom authentication.
The goal is to make it easy to change the look and feel of your pages. This is achieved via the concepts of skins and themes.
A skin is a set of properties and templates that can be applied to controls. Skins are control specific.
A theme is a set of skins and other associated files such as images and stylesheets.
Skins and themes are particularly powerful when combined with the new personalisation features.
While there are various ways in ASP.NET v1.0 to impose a consistent look and feel to a web site, such as the use of user controls there could not be said to be a consistent high level architecture in this area.
ASP.NET 2.0 introduces the concept of 'master pages'. A master page provides a template for other pages to use, providing both shared layout and functionality.
Looks good so far doesn't it? It will be interesting to see how the product develops over the next year or so before full release. I'll try and keep you up to date with articles on DotNetJohn.
A First Look at ASP.NET v 2.0
by Alex Homer, Dave Sussman, Rob Howard