ASP.NET

<p>Anybody use ASP.NET to develop web applications ?</p>

<p>Perhaps ASP.NET is the largest used tool to build web sites. Possibly Java tools come close. There is an array other web development tools that are even simpler, but perhaps provide lesser capability, e.g. reputable one is Dreamweaver.</p>

<p>Some web development tools are free, and are good to start and get your feet wet, but shortly your web building appetite will outgrow them.</p>

<p>If you are serious about it, and can spend a year on using and learning, then get Microsoft Visual Studio, version that allows web developments.</p>

<p>Harry: It's certainly a popular dev tool, usully used for larger projects that will go through a more complex dev/support lifecycle. Will you be connecting to databases, managing session, doing anything transactional, etc? Big learning curve, if you're just trying to put up some pages. Class ASP is a lot easier to digest and to build into a few pages here and there where you need dynamic, server-side scripts to handle simple tasks.</p>

<p>"Will you be connecting to databases, managing session, doing anything transactional, etc?"<br>

<br />The answer is yes ! As part of this class I am taking, I had to download Visual Studio 2010 Framework 4, to my computer. The entire operation took about 2+ hours and the sofware hogged up allot of space on my hardrive. The book that came with this class warned that ASP.NET can affect your operating system, so they recommend using a computer that is not your primary work station.<br>

<br />So Microsoft expects the average person to have an extra computer lying around just for these purposes, give me a break ? So far I experienced problems with my Hotmail email account and now my MSN page cannot render any images. Hopefully nothing else got screwed up.<br>

<br />Another problem I'm having is that whenever I try to create a website, I can't get passed the "default template" the software came with ? I either have to incorporate my pages into the default template, or the thing wont work !</p>

<p>Ummm....</p>

<p>No offense, but if you are a developer, Microsoft expects you to be building your primary workstation around this. Kind of like a videographer builds their system around Final Cut/Adobe/take your pick of other editors.</p>

<p>Personally, as a web developer, .Net offers a lot of nice tools, but I never found it as easy to work in as PHP. Not sure why, but it just doesn't click for me. As for Visual Studio, I have only used the express versions. I never had a problem creating a site or getting anything to work in it. Perhaps you need to create a new site from scratch inside of Visual Studio?</p>

<p>Actually, Harry, yes. Most software dev types I know work with either multiple virtual machines, or more than one physically separate computer for dev tasks. This way than can experience output and the process on diffent platforms, and not worry about the machine they're using needing to be burned down and reconfigured on a regular basis. <br /><br />If you're having trouble with your web browser, make sure you're using a current one, consider using compatibility mode for sites that are having problems, and think about using Chrome or Firefox or some other browser if IE's giving you friction.</p>

<p>I don't know maybe something happened during the download or I'm having some compatibility issue. In class I was able to create my own website without any problems. At home on my computer it has been extremely frustrating. Framework 4 comes with a default Template (config files, folders, styles, Master page, content page, default page) that automatically get created whenever you choose FILE>NEW [Create new Website]. This template comes with code that automatically redirects you to an ASP.NET Login page no matter what you do. Once you login nothing happens ?<br>

<br />You can choose [Create Empty Website] that bypasses the Template folders altogether, but I haven't been able to build a Master Page that way. Some of the excercises in the book require you to build a "Master Page" that will control how all the other pages look on your website. For expample if I wanted all my pages to have a logo + Welcome to Joe Sponge's Website + the Time + a Menu + a Footer, I could create a Master Page with all that information which would display on all of my pages. Great tool if you have 50 or more pages on your website. If something changes then all you would have to do is change the Master Page instead of changing all the other pages.<br>

<br />The problem I'm having is trying to create a Master Page. When I try to create and Launch a Master Page, I get redirected automatically to the ASP>NET login. When I choose [Create Empty Website] and try to launch my Master Page and Content pages from there, I get some type of Prohibition Error. The other pages work OK individually though.</p>

<p>Yes, my own site is done is very simple ASP.NET, and is 99% a free open source gallery component. Many prefer PHP, but also for the smaller work, ASP.NET works just fine. Not too many cheap hosting companies support it, though.<br>

I use Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, nice, free and more competent than I am. Not as stable as VS2008 was, but it's good. The whole alert that it can mess up your system is probably because the book was written when VS2010/.NET4 was still in beta. It's a bit overdone warning, it does not affect the OS that deeply at all. Though Matt's point is true, but for beginning hobbyist development, you won't succeed in the near future in making such a mess of your development PC ;-) However, for testing your sites, you need at least these: IE6,7,8 and 9, FF 3 and 4 and Chrome... And that string of IE make strong cases for virtual machines too.</p>

<p>The default log-in you get is the default website template setting up the back-end database for several settings.The default created master page (site.master) already contains a login. So, it's looking for the database credentials. On my machine, it has automatically created a SQL2008 database. Do you have SQL Server 2008 set up? Maybe it's missing.</p>

<p>Wouter it looks like I have SQL Server 2008 set up. I looked at the ASP.NET folder and the 2008 SQL folder is definately there, but so is the 2005 SQL folder ?<br>

Here is a link to the ASP.NET template:<br>

<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/timlee/archive/2010/06/14/the-new-asp-net-default-web-template-in-visual-studio-2010.aspx" target="_blank">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/timlee/archive/2010/06/14/the-new-asp-net-default-web-template-in-visual-studio-2010.aspx</a></p>

<p>Uhm, the existence of those folders does not mean that SQL server is set up, I fear... Check in control panel under Software whether SQL Server 2005 or 2008 is listed; if not, you need to install it (SQL Server 2008 R2 Express is a free download). So, it's an additional application you need to have running, the site needs its functionality to read and write the data.</p>

<p>Not to be rude, but I have the idea you start learning at the wrong end of the story. Web development is difficult enough because of how the interaction between a browser and server goes, programming is difficult enough as it is, and actually using the development environment is the easier bit, and one that should come <em>last </em>in learning. Master pages are a nice to have, understanding that a webpage can loose a lot of info when it reloads is a must-know. Maybe I'm reading your posts wrong, but for all intents and purposes, you do not need master pages to learn ASP.NET. I'm self-taught in these matters, and I focussed first on programming itself (VB, later VB.NET), first doing Windows-based applications, and now slowly progressing in web development.<br>

<em>(I've checked the template on my system, I have 2010 version, and it sets up a SQL Server connection by default. Since I've got SQL Server Express on this system, for me it all works)</em></p>

<p>Wouter, my understanding is that he is doing this for a class. Also, I just dumped IE6 in my support (as have many others in the field).</p>

<p>Harry, the best way I can think of to see if SQL is running is to check the status of it's service. As far as creating the masterpage, you need to make sure that all the right references from either web.config, the page itself, or the page's code file (if used) are in place. </p>

 

<p>create empty site and add a master page (new item... or something like that; it will give you a choice of many many things to add). then create a new page--same way, plus select your master page as master page. if you still cannot debug even this, make sure your firewall is allowing the dev iis to start</p>

<p>Zach, yes, I get it is for class, I phrased that a bit wrong probably... it's not criticise what Harry tries to achieve here, but rather to focus on what matters.<br /> Dumping IE6 - so do I, but a considerable portion of the world still appears to use it. So it depends a bit on your target audience whether you can dump it. If it's for the "normal" audience, then by all means, let's push people onwards to better browsers.</p>

<p>Vilk Inc, that option to create an empty site does not seem to exist in Visual Studio 2010 anymore. Unfortunately.</p>

<p>Real world, for the resorts I work for, we are seeing less than 5% of our costumers using IE6. And IE is maybe just a hair over 50% of overall traffic.</p>

<p>interesting :) i admit i took it off after losing patience for its bugs, but... why would they remove the empty project option? oh well, create whatever, then delete everything in the tree on the left and add one html page. run debug</p>

<p>The thing is Wouter a few years ago while I was going to schoool for photography, I was also enrolled in the Web Design Certificate program which included classes like HTML, Java, C++, JavaScript, ASP.NET etc. This was back in 2007 so I'm a little rusty. I also have 15+ years on-the-job programming experience.<br>

Back then, I think they were using SQL Server 2005 with ASP.NET. I was able to develop applications easily with minimal programming, but now I'm trying to get my MCTS Certification which requires allot of programming, or at least pretty good knowlege of it. If I remember correctly I never had these problems with templates and installation with the previous version. Things have gotten allot more complicated since then. </p>

<p>Masterpages, to my knowledge, haven't really changed since .net 2.1. So your 2007 experience shoudl still be mostly relevant. Although, my knowledge past 3.5 is a little rusty as my company basically has held at that spot.</p>

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<p>This is the error message I'm getting when trying to create a simple website(Master Page, Page 1, Page 2) using option [Asp.net create Empty Website], Sorry to bother you guys with this stuff but even my Teacher doesn't know what's going on.</p>

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<p>Directory Listing -- /WebSite10/<br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Tuesday, June 07, 2011 10:48 PM 2,407 MasterPage.master<br />Tuesday, June 07, 2011 10:40 PM 290 MasterPage.master.cs<br />Tuesday, June 07, 2011 10:48 PM 412 page1.aspx<br />Tuesday, June 07, 2011 10:41 PM 277 page1.aspx.cs<br />Tuesday, June 07, 2011 10:48 PM 406 page2.aspx<br />Tuesday, June 07, 2011 10:41 PM 277 page2.aspx.cs<br />Tuesday, June 07, 2011 10:39 PM 312 web.config</p>

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<p>When I click on the link page1.aspx the page renders oK.<br>

<br />When I click on MasterPage.master.cs I get this error:</p>

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<p>Server Error in '/WebSite10' Application.<br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />This type of page is not served.<br />Description: The type of page you have requested is not served because it has been explicitly forbidden. The extension '.cs' may be incorrect. Please review the URL below and make sure that it is spelled correctly.<br />Requested URL: /WebSite10/MasterPage.master.cs</p>

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<p>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.0.30319.1</p>

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<p>MasterPage.master.cs shouldn't be a page you actually visit. In fact, you shouldn't even be visiting masterpage.master. Page1.aspx and Page2.aspx are the only two pages that should actually be "viewable". Anything ending with ".cs" is a C# code behind page.</p>

<p><em>The book that came with this class warned that ASP.NET can affect your operating system, so they recommend using a computer that is not your primary work station.</em><em> So Microsoft expects the average person to have an extra computer lying around just for these purposes, give me a break ?</em></p>

<p>This is a Windows limitation. Most software you install can affect the OS and all other applications because of the terrible architecture behind DLLs and the Registry, they just don't always warn you about it in the installer. The larger and more complex the application, the more likely something will be affected. And Microsoft's .NET tools are huge. But even a small application can screw up your entire Windows machine. Incidentally this is also why it's so incredibly easy to write malware for Windows.</p>

<p>*nix OSes (including Mac OS) do not suffer this nonsense. There is a clear, secure division between OS and applications. With very few exceptions, installing an application does not risk slowing down or affecting your OS or the rest of the system. And those exceptions require an administrator to even install.</p>

<p>Zach then I clicked on MasterPage.master without the 'cs' extension but I still got the same error message. This class goes pretty fas,t 3 chapters per week and now I'm stuck at the starting gate. </p>

<p>Ok, it shouldn't be a viewable page on it's own. The only two should be the page1.aspx and page2.aspx. Master pages are merely a piece of the puzzle that allows the other two pages to work. They are not working pieces on their own.</p>

<p>Guys I got it !<br>

I had to change <strong>MasterPageFile="~/Site.master </strong>to<strong> <strong>MasterPageFile="~/MyMaster.master </strong></strong>on the first line of the Default.aspx file. The Default.aspx page was automatically pulling in the code from the <strong>Site.Master file</strong>. Now it's pointing to <strong>MyMaster file </strong>which does not have all the ASP.NET login stuff. Finally I can get some work done, funny the book didn't mention this. Thanks ! </p>

<p>*smacks head* Doh, why didn't I ask that one?</p>

<p>Strange postings.<br>

ASP.net is a league apart from php, in that has an incredible framework behind it. This is like comparing a snapshot camera with a Canon Mark 1. In your pocket for fun excursion, the snapshot is better and you do not need to know as much, you just use it; but for weddings, professional shoots, etc, you get the idea.<br>

For tools, Visual Studio is probably the best development environment there is for developing code to support the dynamic aspects of your website, but for general html development, Expression Web would be a better fit and it also supports PHP if that is your choice. Years ago, Dreamweaver was the tool of choice for html development not because it was great, but simply because it was way better than anything else out there. Frontpage was somewhat of a joke, So when Expression Web came out it was a welcome relief (i.e., much more stable, faster, and cheaper). It has continued to develop and version 4 is mature. Since Adobe purchased dreamweaver, i am sure they have kept it going and improved it, but it was on a bad code base to start with.<br>

<br />PHP is a scripting language, that is 'great' for small projects, but many larger (but not all) projects fall apart with it partly becuase of the limitations of the language (it is a script language), and partly because there are many people using it with poor coding practices. The code (and seperation of code from your front end) is generally much cleaner in vb.net or c# which are the primary language used to code against the .net p latform with.<br /><br />Finally 80 % of the work is not your front end (what people see in your website), but in building the tools for the backend management of it - in this regards it would be far better to start with a solution out there that covers most of what you need.<br /><br />In terms of creating your own website, for fun great, but if you intend this to be for a professional use, then there I would recomend getting some help.</p>