Some Thoughts on ASP.net

[ashish]

Hello all,

This is for all the novices out there new to the world of ASP.NET.

ASP.net by Microsoft is also known as ASP+ is not reallly a upgraded version of ASP. It is a entirely new technology in terms of server side scripting.

ASP.NET delivers amazing performance when used with the .NET framework allowing you to get a drag and drop coding interface resulting in much less coding


What is Server Side Scripting?

Normally, In case of a web page coded in HTML, the request for the page is sent to the server and the HTML file is sent back to the user.

server side scripting allows you to execute some code, some event before the page is sent back to the user so, here when the user requests a ASP page, the request is sent back to the server from the browser, the ASP engine reads the file line by line executing the script written in the file and afte erading all the lines and executing the code the ASP file is returned to the user in the form of a HTML page.


What is .Net Framework?

the .NET Framework is a IDE for building, deploying, and running Web Services and Applications, with support for over 20 different programming laguages.



Are there any differences between ASP.NET Vs ASP

Here are a few major differences between the two scriptin languages:

The extension for a ASp.net file is '.aspx'.

ASP.net offers full compatibility with languages like Visual Basic, C#, C++ where as ASP does not.

ASP.Net contains a huge set of HTML controls all of which can be defined as ASP.NET control objects which in turn can be controlled by scripts.

There is better event handling, all the objects on a page can be processed by the code written in ASp.net

Supports custom forms based user authentification & according to the priviliges of the user he has access to information displayed.

At the first requet of a ASP.net page the code is compiled and a copy of it created & cached in the memory, thus allowing for increased performance.


Can I install ASP.net?

You will need a windows compatible PC & a windows O/S, windows 2000 or XP are good options.
You will also need the internet information server installed, this comes bundled with the 2000 & XP & some other versions of the microsoft O/S, you can install it by going to the add/remove programs in your control panel.

A internet connection to downlaod & install the .Net framework from the microsoft website, this is different from the .Net SDK which is bigger, around 130MBs.

[ashish]

Hello all,


Here is some more information about ASP.Net

Some features of ASP.NET


Crash protection: ASP.NET has been designed to handle your memory leaks efficiently, whenever a memory leak is detected ASP.net creates another copy of itself, all new requests are directed to this new copy, the older copy is deleted along with the memory leak it created when it finishes executing the pending processes.

Memory Leaks - In order for a program to run it needs memory(RAM), after a application is terminated it should normally free up the computer memory it has been using. However it sometimes does not happen which could be due to a result of a bug/design problem in the application.


Lets say that out of 4 applications 3 fail to release all or a significant part of the memory that they were using. This memory is now tied up, now if a new application is started it could be possible that the computer does not have enough memory to provide it to run properly, resulting in a huge system slowdown or sometimes crashes.


Caching: ASP.Net allows you to build web applications that are fast, it does that by caching of compiled code, i.e. certain pages can be cached into the memory, so that they don’t take a longer time to retrieve, now the trick here is that this code is compiled, this is it is already converted into a machine readable format.


Caching/Cache MemoryIn a computer almost all of your applications and data are stored on your hard disk, whenever you access something the CPU first searches for it in the cache memory, if the data is there it is returned back the user, otherwise the CPU searches for it in the Hard disk, once the data is found it is first transported to the RAM of your system, and then from to the cache memory and then it is returned to the user.

The memory of the cache depends on the PC configuration, as more and more data is stored in the cache the previous data has to be deleted, caching makes data access faster as if the data is already stored in the cache then it cuts out the step of searching in the memory.

[sammy]

Is this a Microsoft commercial here? Are you affiliated with them?

[ashish]

Hi Sammy,

No I am not affiliated with microsoft nor am I promoting them or anything else, I am still studying and learning & also just trying to share whatever knowledge I have with all the people out there.

[sammy]

lol ok, i was just wondering. All this information was so random, and i didnt know where you were heading with it.

[ashish]

Hello all,

Here are a few more things about ASP.NET that every novice should know.

In traditional ASP the executable code was written along with the HTML code i.e. some lines of HTML and then some lines of ASP and then some more lines of HTML & so on, for a beginner this make the code very difficult to understand also it is a tiring task to read or even modify such codes.
ASP.NET adderssed this issue as well with the help of three kinds of server controls.

A. HTML Server Controls.
B. Validation Server Controls.
C. Web Server Controls.

ASP.NET was designed with the issue of scalability in mind. ASP.NET is capable of being scaled over several servers at a time with very little loss of communication.

Scalability - In a broad sense of the term scalability in computing means being able to function properly or even better when there is a change in the environment in terms of volume or size.

ASP.net is not cross platform compatible though i.e. you cant play mix and match with it, as its been made by microsoft it can only run on microsoft IIS servers.


ASP.NET is not totally compatible with ASP i.e. it is not fully backwards compatible.


Some information from http://www.w3schools.com

[ashish]

Hello all,

Here are a few more things about ASP.NET


HTML server controls - Normally, all HTMl elements in ASP.NET files are treated as text. HTML server controls are basically HTML tags that are processed by the web server and not the browser i.e. these are HTML tags understood by the web server.

To make a HTML server control we use the runat = "server" attribute in the <form> tag, HTML server controls can only be placed within a <form> tag. We can use the 'id' attribute in order to give the HTML server control a custom defined name.

Some very common HTML server controls are HtmlImage, HtmlButton, HtmlAnchor etc. etc.

[rdove]

Originally posted by ashish
Hello all,

Here are a few more things about ASP.NET


HTML server controls - Normally, all HTMl elements in ASP.NET files are treated as text. HTML server controls are basically HTML tags that are processed by the web server and not the browser i.e. these are HTML tags understood by the web server.

To make a HTML server control we use the runat = "server" attribute in the <form> tag, HTML server controls can only be placed within a <form> tag. We can use the 'id' attribute in order to give the HTML server control a custom defined name.

Some very common HTML server controls are HtmlImage, HtmlButton, HtmlAnchor etc. etc.

The HTML Server controls are good, but one thing you gotta remeber about them is that you should not use them unless you are going to do a specific purpose for processing on the server. They WILL slow your page load if you use them for everything. ViewState is another thing you want to turn off if it is not needed on a page. Unless the control is doing something that is needs to interact with the server other than the Request object, you should not use it or turn it off.

[rdove]

Originally posted by ashish
At the first requet of a ASP.net page the code is compiled and a copy of it created & cached in the memory, thus allowing for increased performance.

You do realize that you don't have to compile ASP.NET code. You can code ASP.NET pages just like you do in ASP. When the ASP.NET page is accessed the JIT compiler will kick in and compile the code much like it does in ASP.NET.

[ashish]

Originally posted by rdove
You do realize that you don't have to compile ASP.NET code. You can code ASP.NET pages just like you do in ASP. When the ASP.NET page is accessed the JIT compiler will kick in and compile the code much like it does in ASP.NET.

Hello rdove,

Thanks for pointing that out. Still learning myself

[ashish]

Hello all,

Here is some information on Web Server Controls in ASP.NET


Web Server Controls - Just like HTML server controls, web server controls are also created on the server once again requiring the 'runat' attribute in the <form> tag. However these controls are different from the HTML server controls as these are controls that are special ASP.NET tags that are recognised by the server.

[ashish]

Hello Everyone,

Here is some more 411 on ASP.NET

The Third and last control in ASP.NET is the


Validation Server control: As the name suggests, these are controls that perform some kind of validation on data entered by the user.

What is Validation: It is a way of checking that the data entered by the user is correct and relevant before a action is performed otherwise a error message is generated to the user. There can be many different kinds of validations.

For Example you might want to validate the age of a person, i.e. in a member registration form you might want the user to be of a specific age before S/he is allowed to register, you can do that by validating the age of the person and informing them if they are below the age.

Validations can also be used to make sure that a particular data is filled by the user for example the password field in some egistration forms.

Another kind of validation that you can make is that a field should hold only a certain type of data, like the 'Name' Field in a form should only accept characters and if there are any other characters present then the user should be informed of the error.


ASP.NET comes bundled with a good amount of validation controls, like most languages it allows you to make your own validation criteria as well :

Again these controls must be coded in the <form> tag with the runat "server" attribute and a id.


for more information you can visit:
www.411asp.net
www.w3schools.com
www.codewanker.com

[ashish]

Hiya,

Thought I should mention the validation server controls in ASP.NET coz they are pretty important.

ASP.NET has got some 6 validation controls


CompareValidator - Is used to compare two different values, returns a Boolean expression.

RequiredFieldValidator - Is used to make sure that there is a value entered in a particular input control i.e. there has been a change of value in the input field, by default the value of such a field is set to "" and if there is no change in this value, it returns a error.

RegularExpressionValidator - You can use this to make sure that the data entered in a particular field is in a pattern defined by you, for example, there might be a field where you want the user to enter the phone number along with country and area code, you can check that the user enters the data in that pattern other wise show an error to the user.

ValidationSummary - This control returns a list of error messages generated by the various validation controls used on a web page.


RangeValidator - Used to check that the data entered by the user is in between a certain range, i.e. the data entered by the user must be between a certain upper & lower limit. You can use it for numbers, character & dates.
For ex: You might want the user to enter a month and so that implies that it should be between 1-12, anything else should normally generate an error. You specify the ranges by using the 'MaximumValue' & 'MinimumValue' property.

CustomValidator - Sometimes you want to perform a validation that is not provided in ASP.NET validation controls, so ASP.NET allows you to code a user defined validation and call it in the CustomValidator. Take the case of a registration form where you want the user to have at least 8 characters, so you write the code to check that and then use it through CustomValidator.

some information from www.w3schools.com & www.asp411.net

[ashish]

Hello all,

Back with some more information on ASP.NET, lets talk in detail about web server controls

AdRotator - This control is erally useful if you want to display advertisements on your site, by using this control, you can just giev the paths of the ad images you want to show along with their URL's & then every time the page is loaded it cycles through these ads and picks one.

You can also set the priority of which ad should be shown more often by using the <impressions> tag.


Button - Used to create a clickable button, you can use this to perform a action when clicked by the user, by default it submits the information on the page backto the web server, but it can also be programmed to perfrom some other action.

Calender - Displays a calender in a very pretty graphical format, you can also move back and forth between in this calender, add notes & events for a particular day.

CheckBox - Used for displaying a Checkbox . You can set its property to be checked by default.

Data Grid - The data grid control can display data in the form of a table, also it provides functioanlity to modify the data.

Data List - Similar to Data Grid in the sense that it also displays data, but here you can specify how it will be displayed through the use of templates & styles.

Drop Down List - This allows you to create a drop-down list, from which the user can chose a particular option. Once a option has been selected it can also be automatically sent back to the server without the user having to click on any 'submit' or 'go' button.

HyperLink - Allows you to create a link.

Image - Allows you to display a image on the page.


Any comments/suggestions/corrections are welcome


Some info from: www.asp411.com

[ashish]

Hey all,

Just continuing where I left off from about web server controls. J



Image Button - Very similar to the button control, however in place of a clickable button, there is a image. When the image is clicked with the mouse it executes a certain function which is defined in the 'onClick' property of the image control.

Link Button - Use this to create buttons that open a new link, it has the functionality of the button control but the looks of a hyperlink control.

Label - This control is used to specify some text that will be displayed on the web page, it is normally used for displaying dynamic text on the web page, i.e. show some text after a certain event has taken place.


List Box - Creates a list box that shows the user many choices or options, you can change the property of this box to make it a single or multiple selection box.


Any comments/suggestions/corrections are welcome

You can find more details about web sever controls at www.411asp.net & www.w3schools.com