Last nights .NET UG Meeting

I ended up going home sick, sorry I did.  Seems we had 75 folks show up.  Here is a summary of the meeting:

"The presenter was G. Andrew Duthie, author of ASP.Net Programming with VB/C# and ASP.NET in a Nutshell.

We started with a quick mention of Visual Studio Team Systemthat will be coming out in the Fall.

He mentioned that the VS 2005 Beta 2 should be out in April and that all code written with this Beta can be put into production, according to the licensing.

He started by mentioning the different ways to create web site projects (no longer under new > project, now under New > Website). You can choose a deploy by FTP, to local IIS, to Front Page style, or with Web Matrix style Cassinion the local PC.

Next he added a grid view control, selected a data source, checked the fields he wanted, selected insert/update/delete and set the properties on the grid view to allow paging, sorting, selecting, updating, deleting, etc. He started the project and it worked. The control allowed the user to update the data in the grid without a single line of code being written.

Next, we created an XML file and a data class with a function that returns the data in the XML file in a data set. Then we bound that object to the data view. It worked. This demonstrated that you can bind a data view to a custom data class.

We discussed partial classes (which means no more auto-generated code in the vb/cs class behind the web page). Now, at compile time, the compiler mergers the aspx with the vb or cs file to create a single class. This means that you have access to all the objects on the page from the code behind vb or cs file without having to repeat all of the objects in the vb or cs file that are on the page. This gives a much cleaner view, in my opinion.

Andrew went over the new features for Design View/HTML View for the aspxs. When working with closing brackets or parenthesis, the IDE automatically bolds the matching bracket or parenthesis so you don't have to count them any more. In HTML View, at the bottom of the screen are tabs that allow you to jump to any nested table on the page and select it. You can then switch to Design View and the same part of the page will be selected there. These are definitely handy features. Also, the IDE will no longer auto format code you have reformatted, so if you want some carriage returns after each attribute of a node, you can have this and retain your formatting.


Andrew discussed briefly SQL Express and the ability to copy and paste data sources around like Access Databases. He added an authentication control to the page and auto-created the SQL Express database and necessary tables, as well as all the code to verify credentials against that database. Adding authentication to the site was just a drag and drop - set a couple of properties. The passwords are automatically set to be stored with a salted hash. He demo'd another control that determines the logged in state and presents different text to the user based on this state. For example, if you are logged in as Bob it says "Hi Bob" and if not logged in it says "Welcome!".

He demonstrated the ASP Web Site Configuration Tool which is basically a web interface for making changes to web.config. You can use this tool for adding new users to the site. I believe you can add roles for the users. Pretty much most of the stuff done with web.config can be configured through this web interface that gives clear descriptions as you make your changes.

He showed a new navigation controlwhich uses a web.sitemap XML File, into which you type all your pages in your site and which site roles can see which pages. Then you bind this XML list to a navigation control and you side bar navigation control automatically shows those items. It looked interesting, but I'll bet most of us stick with our user controls for this.

Andrew went over master pages. The best way to think of master pages is visual inheritance for the site. For example, you could use master pages to create a custom look and feel that is customer specific. One customer could have the navigation bar on the left with their logo on the top while the other could have the navigation bar on the bottom with the logo on left. Whatever. Anyway, then you aren't pasting in your table with user controls onto every page you create. Additionally, you can visually see the layout (greyed out so you know it is inherited) while you work on the page's content. Master pages come with a wizard full of templates you can choose from.

In short, Andrew built a site that managed authentication, displayed data to the user, allowing the user to insert/update/delete/select from the data, that had a inherited layout from a master page including a navigation control and a title bar. He didn't write a single line of code to do this. The IDE does make life easier with new partial classes so that code-behind files are less cluttered and with new styles for editing in HTML view. This goes along with all the new features in VS 2005 for code (like highlighting unchecked in code one color, unsaved code in another and etc.).

Andrew went over the Code Camp that he has scheduled for Saturday, May 7 in Reston VA. For more info on the code camp, go here... http://blogs.msdn.com/gduthie/and click on the camp fire on the left hand side. This will be a twelve hour event starting at 9:00 AM."