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4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Beta 1 Overview

This document gives an overview of many of the new features that are included in the upcoming Beta 1 release of.NET 4. And in the Visual Studio 2010 release..NET 4 is a major update to the.NET Framework and includes many new features. These include:.extensible output caching, auto-starting web applications, and the incredible shrinking session state.

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4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Beta 1 Overview

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samaymahajan

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ASP.NET 4.

0 and Visual Studio 2010

Web Development Beta 1 Overview
Many exciting changes for ASP.NET are coming in the .NET Framework version 4.0.
This document gives an overview of many of the new features that are included in
the upcoming Beta 1 release of .NET 4.0 and in the Visual Studio 2010 release.

Contents
Core Services...........................................................................................2
Extensible Output Caching......................................................................................2
Auto-Start Web Applications...................................................................................4
Permanently Redirecting a Page..............................................................................6
The Incredible Shrinking Session State....................................................................6

AJAX Functionality in ASP.NET 4.0.............................................................7

Client Template Rendering.................................................................................. .....7
Instantiating Behaviors and Controls Declaratively...............................................10
Live Data Binding..................................................................................................13
Using the Observer Pattern with JavaScript Objects and Arrays............................15
The DataView Control............................................................................................16
The AdoNetServiceProxy Class..............................................................................18
The DataContext and AdoNetDataContext Classes...............................................19
Refactoring the Microsoft AJAX Framework Libraries.............................................20

Web Forms.............................................................................................23
Setting Meta Tags with the Page.Keywords and Page.Description Properties........23
Enabling View State for Individual Controls...........................................................25
Changes to Browser Capabilities...........................................................................26
Routing in ASP.NET 4.0..........................................................................................32
Setting Client IDs......................................................................................... ..........37
Persisting Row Selection in Data Controls.............................................................40
FormView Control Enhancements..........................................................................41
ListView Control Enhancements............................................................................42
Filtering Data with the QueryExtender Control......................................................42

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 1

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
Dynamic Data.........................................................................................45
Declarative DynamicDataManager Control Syntax................................................45
Entity Templates................................................................................... .................46
New Field Templates for URLs and E-mail Addresses.............................................48
Creating Links with the DynamicHyperLink Control...............................................48
Support for Inheritance in the Data Model.............................................................49
Support for Many-to-Many Relationships (Entity Framework Only)........................49
New Attributes to Control Display and Support Enumerations..............................49
Enhanced Support for Filters.................................................................................49

Visual Studio 2010 Web Designer Improvements.....................................50

Improved CSS Compatibility..................................................................................50
HTML and JScript Snippets.....................................................................................50
JScript IntelliSense Enhancements........................................................................50

Web Application Deployment with Visual Studio 2010.............................51

Web Packaging......................................................................................................51
Web.Config Transformation................................................................................ ....52
Database Deployment............................................................................. ..............52
One-Click Publishing..............................................................................................53
Resources.......................................................................................... ....................53

Disclaimer..............................................................................................54

Core Services
ASP.NET 4 introduces a number of features that improve core ASP.NET services such
as output caching and session-state storage.

Extensible Output Caching

Since ASP.NET 1.0 was released, output caching has enabled developers to store the
generated output of pages, controls, and HTTP responses in memory. On
subsequent Web requests, ASP.NET can serve content more quickly by retrieving the
generated output from memory instead of regenerating the output from scratch.
However, this approach has a limitation — generated content always has to be
stored in memory, and on heavily trafficked servers, the memory consumed by
output caching can compete with memory demands from other portions of a Web
application.

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 2

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
ASP.NET 4.0 adds an extensibility point to output caching that enables you to
configure one or more custom output-cache providers. Output-cache providers can
use any storage mechanism to persist HTML content. This makes it possible to
create custom output-cache providers for diverse persistence mechanisms, which
can include local or remote disks, cloud storage, and distributed cache engines.

You create a custom output-cache provider as a class that derives from the new
System.Web.Caching.OutputCacheProvider type. You can then configure the
provider in the Web.config file by using the new providers subsection of the
outputCache element, as shown in the following example:

<add name="DiskCache"

type="Test.OutputCacheEx.DiskOutputCacheProvider, DiskCacheProvider"/>

</providers>

</outputCache>

</caching>

By default in ASP.NET 4.0, all HTTP responses, rendered pages, and controls use the
in-memory output cache, as shown in the previous example, where the
defaultProvider attribute is set to AspNetInternalProvider. You can change the default
output-cache provider used for a Web application by specifying a different provider
name for defaultProvider.

In addition, you can select different output-cache providers per control and per
request. The easiest way to choose a different output-cache provider for different
Web user controls is to do so declaratively by using the new providerName attribute
in a page or control directive, as shown in the following example:

<%@ OutputCache Duration="60" VaryByParam="None" providerName="DiskCache" %>

Specifying a different output cache provider for an HTTP request requires a little
more work. Instead of declaratively specifying the provider, you instead override the
new GetOuputCacheProviderName method in the Global.asax file to
programmatically specify which provider to use for a specific request. The following
example shows how to do this.

public override string GetOutputCacheProviderName(HttpContext context)

if (context.Request.Path.EndsWith("Advanced.aspx"))

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 3

else

return base.GetOutputCacheProviderName(context);

With the addition of output-cache provider extensibility to ASP.NET 4.0, you can now
pursue more aggressive and more intelligent output-caching strategies for your Web
sites. For example, it is now possible to cache the "Top 10" pages of a site in
memory, while caching pages that get lower traffic on disk. Alternatively, you can
cache every vary-by combination for a rendered page, but use a distributed cache
so that the memory consumption is offloaded from front-end Web servers.

Auto-Start Web Applications

Some Web applications need to load large amounts of data or perform expensive
initialization processing before serving the first request. In earlier versions of
ASP.NET, for these situations you had to devise custom approaches to "wake up" an
ASP.NET application and then run initialization code during the Application_Load
method in the Global.asax file.

A new scalability feature named auto-start that directly addresses this scenario is
available when ASP.NET 4.0 runs on IIS 7.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2. The auto-
start feature provides a controlled approach for starting up an application pool,
initializing an ASP.NET application, and then accepting HTTP requests.

To use the auto-start feature, an IIS administrator sets an application pool in IIS 7.5
to be automatically started by using the following configuration in the
applicationHost.config file:

<add name="MyApplicationPool" startMode="AlwaysRunning" />

</applicationPools>

Because a single application pool can contain multiple applications, you specify
individual applications to be automatically started by using the following
configuration in the applicationHost.config file:

<sites>

<site name="MySite" id="1">

<application path="/"

preloadEnabled="true"

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 4

</application>

</site>

</sites>

<add name="PrewarmMyCache"

type="MyNamespace.CustomInitialization, MyLibrary" />

</preloadProviders>

When an IIS 7.5 server is cold-started or when an individual application pool is

recycled, IIS 7.5 uses the information in the applicationHost.config file to determine
which Web applications need to be automatically started. For each application that
is marked for auto-start, IIS7.5 sends a request to ASP.NET 4.0 to start the
application in a state during which the application temporarily does not accept HTTP
requests. When it is in this state, ASP.NET instantiates the type defined by the
preloadProvider attribute (as shown in the previous example) and calls into its
public entry point.

You create a managed auto-start type with the necessary entry point by
implementing the IProcessHostPreloadClient interface, as shown in the following
example:

public class CustomInitialization : System.Web.Hosting.IProcessHostPreloadClient

public void Preload(string[] parameters)

// Perform initialization.

After your initialization code runs in the Preload method and the method returns,
the ASP.NET application is ready to process requests.

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 5

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
With the addition of auto-start to IIS 7.5 and ASP.NET 4.0, you now have a well-
defined approach for performing expensive application initialization prior to
processing the first HTTP request. For example, you can use the new auto-start
feature to initialize an application and then signal a load-balancer that the
application was initialized and ready to accept HTTP traffic.

Permanently Redirecting a Page

It is common practice in Web applications to move pages and other content around
over time, which can lead to an accumulation of stale links in search engines. In
ASP.NET, developers have traditionally handled requests to old URLs by using by
using the Response.Redirect method to forward a request to the new URL. However,
the Redirect method issues an HTTP 302 Found (temporary redirect) response,
which results in an extra HTTP round trip when users attempt to access the old
URLs.

ASP.NET 4.0 adds a new RedirectPermanent helper method that makes it easy to
issue HTTP 301 Moved Permanently responses, as in the following example:

RedirectPermanent("/newpath/foroldcontent.aspx");

Search engines and other user agents that recognize permanent redirects will store
the new URL that is associated with the content, which eliminates the unnecessary
round trip made by the browser for temporary redirects.

The Incredible Shrinking Session State

ASP.NET provides two default options for storing session state across a Web farm: a
session-state provider that invokes an out-of-process session-state server, and a
session-state provider that stores data in a Microsoft SQL Server database. Because
both options involve storing state information outside a Web application's worker
process, session state has to be serialized before it is sent to remote storage.
Depending on how much information a developer saves in session state, the size of
the serialized data can grow quite large.

ASP.NET 4.0 introduces a new compression option for both kinds of out-of-process
session-state providers. When the compressionEnabled configuration option shown
in the following example is set to true, ASP.NET will compress (and decompress)
serialized session state by using the .NET Framework
System.IO.Compression.GZipStream class.

<sessionState

mode="SqlServer"

sqlConnectionString="data source=dbserver;Initial Catalog=aspnetstate"

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 6

compressionEnabled="true"

With the simple addition of the new attribute to the Web.config file, applications with
spare CPU cycles on Web servers can realize substantial reductions in the size of
serialized session-state data.

AJAX Functionality in ASP.NET 4.0

The AJAX functionality in ASP.NET 4.0 enables new client data scenarios for page
and component developers that allow JSON data from the server to be rendered as
HTML in a highly manageable and efficient way. To enable these scenarios, ASP.NET
4.0 includes the following major features:

Client-side template rendering.

Declarative instantiation of client-side behaviors and controls.

Live data binding.

Use of the observer pattern with JavaScript types.

An AdoNetServiceProxy class for client-side interaction with ADO.NET Data

Services.

A client-side DataView control for data-bound UI in the browser.

DataContext and AdoNetDataContext classes for interaction with Web services.

Refactored ASP.NET AJAX framework libraries.

Client Template Rendering

In client-based development, templates are the most manageable way of creating
UI from data. ASP.NET 4.0 includes a new template engine for client development
that meets the following requirements:

Performance — The engine must be able to render a typical number of items

using a reasonably complex template before users perceive an interruption in
their interaction with the application.

Simplicity — The template syntax must be very readable and must be optimized
for the most common scenario, namely one-way/one-time binding.

Expression language — Templates must support an expression language to go

beyond the simplest cases. The expression language should use familiar syntax,
ideally JavaScript syntax.

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 7

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
Interspersed code and markup — It must be possible to perform conditional
rendering or to loop over markup by using code that surrounds HTML.

XHTML compliance — The template should be able to render XHTML-compliant

markup.

Components — When using the template syntax, the developer must be able to
instantiate client-side controls and behaviors that attach to HTML elements in
the page or within templates.

Template Example

The following example shows a typical client template that you can create using
ASP.NET 4.0.

<ul id="myTemplate" class="sys-template"

sys:attach="dataview"

<li>

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

<div>{{ Description }}</div>

</li>

</ul>

The class attribute of the outer div element is set to sys-template, which is a
convention that is used in order to hide the initial template from the user. You
should define this class in your CSS style sheet as {display:none;}.

When the template is rendered, it has a data item as context. Fields or properties of
that data item can be included in the template markup by using {{ }} expressions —
for example, {{ Name }}, if the data item has a Name field. These expressions can be
placed anywhere in text content, or you can use them as the value of an attribute.
In addition to fields or properties, the expression blocks can also contain any
JavaScript expression that can be evaluated as a string.

You can set up DOM events by using the $addHandler method. The DOM on*
attributes of elements (for example, onclick=method) also work from within
templates.

Instantiating a Template by Using the DataView Control

The most convenient way to use client templates in ASP.NET 4.0 is through the
DataView control. The content of a DataView control is used as a template that
renders the data item that is provided to the control. If you set the DataView

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 8

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
control's data property to an array, the template is rendered once for each item in
the array. The DataView control binds to live data, meaning that the control is
automatically updated when the data changes, without the need to rebind. This
provides a dynamic data-driven UI in the browser. The following example shows the
declarative markup for a DataView control that binds to an array named imagesArray.

<body xmlns:sys="javascript:Sys"

xmlns:dataview="javascript:Sys.UI.DataView"

sys:activate="*">

<ul sys:attach="dataview" class="sys-template"

dataview:data="{{ imagesArray }}"

<li>

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

<div>{{ Description }}</div>

</li>

</ul>

</body>

Instantiating a Template by Using Code

You can also create a compiled template from code by using the Sys.UI.Template
class, as shown in the following example:

var t = new Sys.UI.Template($get("myTemplate"));

The constructor takes the parent element of the template as its argument. You can
then render a compiled template into the DOM by calling its instantiateIn method
and specifying an HTML container element and a data item as context. The
following example shows how to do this.

t.instantiateIn(

$get("targetContainer"),

Name: "Name",

Description: "Description"

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 9

Using Pseudo-Columns in a Template

In addition to providing access to fields and properties of the data item, the
template rendering engine also provides access to pre-defined "pseudo-columns"
such as $index and $dataItem. These pseudo-columns give you access to values
from the rendering engine at render time. You can use pseudo-columns the way you
use any JavaScript variable in the template instance. The first example applies a
different CSS class to the div element for alternating items that are rendered by the
dataView control. The second examples passes the pseudo-column $dataItem,
which represents the data for the current row, to a custom function named
nameConvert for processing.

<div class:alternateitem="{{$index%2 == 1}}">

<span>{{nameConvert($dataItem)}}</span>

Incorporating Code into a Template by Using the code:if, code:before, and

code:after Attributes

You can add the new code:if, code:before, and code:after declarative attributes to
any DOM element within a template in order to render the element conditionally
(code:if) or to render arbitrary code before (code:before) or after (code:after) the
element. The following example shows how to use the code:If attribute to render an
hr element as a separator between items. The code:if attribute uses the value of the
$index pseudo-column to ensure that the hr element is rendered only between
items, and not before the first one or after the last one.

<ul id="myTemplate" class="sys-template">

<li>

<hr code:if="$index!==0" />

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

<div>{{ Description }}</div>

</li>

</ul>

Instantiating Behaviors and Controls Declaratively

ASP.NET 4.0 introduces a way to declaratively instantiate client-side controls and
behaviors and attach them to HTML elements. The declarative markup is achieved

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 10

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
without adding any new HTML elements, simply by including additional namespaced
attributes which are XHTML compliant.

Declarative Instantiation Within a Template

Suppose that you want to add a Contoso.DatePicker control to a div element. In

ASP.NET 4.0, you can start by declaring a namespace prefix in the opening <body>
tag (or in a template's parent tag), similar to the way the @ Register directive works
in server-based files. The following example shows a namespace declaration.

<body xmlns:sys="javascript:Sys" xmlns:datepicker="javascript:Contoso.DatePicker">

The javascript:Sys namespace (typically mapped to the sys: prefix, as shown in the
example) is used for a number of system attributes. One of those system attributes
is sys:attach, which is used to specify a comma-separated list of controls or
behaviors to attach to the element, as shown in the following example:

<ul id="myTemplate" class="sys-template">

<li>

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

<div>{{ Description }}</div>

<div sys:attach="datepicker" datepicker:date="{{ CreatedDate }}"></div>

</li>

</ul>

The example shows how to instantiate a Contoso.DatePicker control that is attached

to a div element and how to set the control's date property to the value of the
CreatedDate field of the current data item.

Declarative Instantiation Outside a Template

Declarative instantiation of controls will only work if the declarative markup is within
an element that has been configured, or activated, for this purpose. Templates
themselves are already activated, so declarative markup to instantiate and attach
controls works within a template. But to declaratively instantiate controls outside a
template, you must first configure the page to ensure that sys:attach markup is
within an activated element. You do this by including a sys:activate attribute on the
opening body tag, and setting its value to a comma-separated list of element IDs for
the elements that you want to allow declarative instantiation in. The following
example activates elements whose IDs are panel1 and panel2:

<body xmlns:sys="javascript:Sys" sys:activate="panel1,panel2">

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 11

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
This causes the ASP.NET AJAX framework to scan the children of those elements for
any sys:attach attributes, and to instantiate the corresponding controls.

You can also activate every element in the document. However, doing so can cause
a small delay when the page is initialized, so the technique should be used with
caution on large pages. The following example shows how to activate the whole
document.

<body xmlns:sys="javascript:Sys" sys:activate="*">

A DataView control is typically attached to an element that is not already within a

template. This is a common reason to use sys:activate, as in the following complete
example:

<body xmlns:sys="javascript:Sys"

xmlns:dataview="javascript:Sys.UI.DataView"

sys:activate="*">

<ul sys:attach="dataview" class="sys-template"

dataview:data="{{ imagesArray }}"

<li>

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

<div>{{ Description }}</div>

</li>

</ul>

</body>

Activating Elements Declaratively from the ScriptManager Control

ASP.NET 4.0 introduces the ClientElementsToActivate property of the ScriptManager

and ScriptManagerProxy controls. This property lets you specify a comma-separated
list of elements to activate, much like the sys:activate attribute does on the body
element. By using this property, you can specify elements to activate in cases
where you do not have access to the <body> tag (such as in a content page). The
following example shows how to use the ClientElementsToActivate property.

<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server"

ClientElementsToActivate="panel1,panel2">

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 12

<asp:ScriptReference Name="MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js" />

<asp:ScriptReference Name="MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js" />

</Scripts>

</asp:ScriptManager>

In the example, the elements with ID panel1 and panel2 are activated. This example
also shows references to MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js and MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js, which
contain most of the new ASP.NET AJAX features. For more information about these
scripts, see Refactoring the Microsoft AJAX Framework Libraries later in this
document.

Live Data Binding

The template examples shown earlier include several examples of data binding that
uses the one-way/one-time binding syntax: {{ expression }}. This is illustrated by
the following example:

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

This type of binding is referred to as one-time binding because the expression is

evaluated only once, at the time that the template is rendered. With one-way/one-
time binding, if the source data changes after the template has been rendered (in
the previous example, if the Name field changes), the rendered value will not be
automatically updated.

You can use an alternative live-binding syntax in order to ensure that the target
value is automatically updated whenever the source value changes. This is shown in
the following example:

<h3>{binding Name}</h3>

With this binding syntax, if the Name field of the current data item is changed, the
rendered value will automatically be updated in response.

This example, where the binding is to a text node (the content of the h3 element),
illustrates one-way live binding. The source value (in this case, the data) binds one-
way to the target (in this case, an HTML text node), so when the source value
changes, the target is updated. But there is no binding from the target back to the
source.

Another form of live binding is two-way live binding, which is useful when a text box
is provided that enables users to modify the value of underlying data, as in the
following example:

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 13

In two-way live binding, the binding works in both directions. If the target value is
changed (in this case, the value in the UI), the source value is automatically
updated (in this case, the underlying data item). Similarly, if the source value is
changed (in this case, if the underlying data value is updated externally), the target
value (the value in the UI) is updated in response. As a result, target and source are
always in sync.

In the following example, if the user modifies the value in the text box, the value
that is rendered in the h3 element will automatically be updated to reflect the new
value that is provided by the user.

<h3>{{ binding Name }}</h3>

<input type="text" value="{binding Name}"/>

The live-binding syntax is similar to binding syntax in WPF (XAML). It can be used for
binding between UI and data, as in the above examples, as well as directly between
UI elements, between data and properties of declaratively attached controls and
components, and so on. The syntax also supports additional features, such as
providing functions for converting data values to rendered values, or converting
back from values entered in UI to an appropriately formatted data value. The
following example shows how to provide conversion functions:

<input type="text" value="{binding Price, convert=toDollars,

convertBack=fromDollars}"/>

A similar syntax can be used to specify a binding mode (one-way or two-way)

explicitly:

<input type="text" value="{binding Price, mode=oneWay}"/>

However, in most cases this is not necessary, because the default binding behavior
is that text boxes and other input controls automatically use two-way binding, and
other bindings use one-way binding. In the previous example, this default behavior
is overridden so that if the data value changes, the value in the text box will
change, but if the user modifies the value in the UI, the underlying data value will
not be updated correspondingly.

The underlying technology that enables live bindings is the ASP.NET AJAX observer
pattern, which is used internally by the Binding class and is described in the next
section. For more information about binding, see The DataView Control later in this
document.

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 14

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
Using the Observer Pattern with JavaScript Objects and Arrays
The observer pattern enables an object to be notified about changes that occur in
another object. (The term observer pattern is often misused in JavaScript
frameworks to describe event handling based on the addHandler method and
similar techniques.) ASP.NET 4.0 implements the pattern completely. It adds
observer functionality to ordinary JavaScript objects or arrays so that they raise
change notifications when they are modified through the Sys.Observer interface. (In
the present state of JavaScript, changes that are made directly, without going
through the interface, will not raise change notifications.) The observer pattern can
be used to establish live bindings between UI elements and objects or arrays, such
as those you might get from a JSON Web service.

In the following example, the Sys.Observer class is used to add items to the
imagesArray array in a way that raises CollectionChanged notifications. As a result,
the DataView control will automatically update and display the inserted item after
the user has clicked the Insert button. This is possible because the DataView
control is bound to its source data (in this case, the imagesArray array that the data
property is set to) by using live binding.

var imagesArray = [];

Sys.Observer.makeObservable(imageArray);

function onInsert() {

var newImage = { Name: "Name", Description: "Description" };

imagesArray.add(newImage);

</script>

<button onclick="onInsert()">Insert</button>

<ul id="imagesList" sys:attach="dataview" class="sys-template"

dataview:data="{{ imagesArray }}"

<li>

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 15

</li>

</ul>

The DataView Control

The DataView control can bind to any JavaScript object or array, or to any ASP.NET
AJAX component.

Providing Data to the DataView Control

Data can be provided to the DataView control in a number of ways. One way is by
setting the data property of the DataView control. The following example shows how
to set the DataView control’s data property through declarative binding:

<ul sys:attach="dataview" class="sys-template"

dataview:data="{{ imagesArray }}"

<li>

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

<div>{{ Description }}</div>

</li>

</ul>

The following example shows how to set the DataView control’s data property
through code:

function pageLoad() {

imagesService.GetImages(querySucceeded);

function querySucceeded(result) {

$find("imagesList").set_data(result);

</script>

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 16

<li>

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

<div>{{ Description }}</div>

</li>

</ul>

Another way to provide data is to specify a WCF or ASP.NET Web service directly in
the dataProvider property of the DataView control, as shown in the following
example:

<ul sys:attach="dataview" class="sys-template"

dataview:dataprovider="../Services/imagesService.svc"

dataview:fetchOperation="GetImages"

<li>

<h3>{{ Name }}</h3>

<div>{{ Description }}</div>

</li>

</ul>

When the DataView control’s dataProvider property is set, the DataView control will
use the provider (in this case, the Web service) to fetch data by using the operation
specified in the fetchOperation property. For other examples in which the
dataProvider property is set to an instance of the DataContext class (used for read-
write scenarios) see The DataContext and AdoNetDataContext Classes later in this
document.

Additional Features of the DataView Control

The DataView control provides a number of features that are not shown in the
previous examples, such as support for layout templates and external templates,
built-in selection support for use in master-detail scenarios, command bubbling, and
so on. The following example illustrates how to use some of these features to
configure linked master-detail views, using two DataView controls that are linked
through live binding.

<ul sys:attach="dataview" class=" sys-template"

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 17

dataview:fetchOperation="GetImages"

dataview:selecteditemclass="myselected"

dataview:sys-key="master"

<li sys:command="Select">{{ Name }}</li>

</ul>

<div class="sys-template"

sys:attach="dataview"

dataview:data="{binding selectedData, source={{master}} }"

<div>Name: <input type="text" value="{binding Name}"/></div>

<div>Description: <input type="text" value="{binding Description}"/></div>

</div>

The Select command in the master view template ensures that when the user clicks
one of the items rendered by the master view, that item becomes the selected item.
As a result, the CSS class specified in the selectedItemClass property of the master
DataView control is applied to the markup for that item. In addition, the
corresponding data item becomes the value that is returned by the selectedData
property of the master DataView control.

The detail DataView control uses live binding so that its data item is dynamically set
to the current selectedData value of the master DataView control. In the example,
the detail view provides an edit template with two-way binding that lets users
modify the fields of the data item.

The AdoNetServiceProxy Class

The AdoNetServiceProxy class enables read-write interaction with ADO.NET Data
Services from JavaScript. The class enables access from JavaScript to a broad range
of features of ADO.NET Data Services. It provides direct programmatic access to the
basic REST operations provided by ADO.NET Data Services (insert, query, update,
and remove), as well as many advanced features such as verb tunneling (custom
HTTP methods) and optimistic concurrency.

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The AdoNetServiceProxy class is used by the AdoNetDataContext class in read-write
scenarios, as explained in the next section.

The DataContext and AdoNetDataContext Classes

For read-write scenarios that use Web services or data services, ASP.NET 4.0
provides a DataContext class that provides full support for change tracking in the
browser. This enables complete end-to-end AJAX-based data scenarios.

Typically, data is fetched from the server through JSON services such as a WCF AJAX-
enabled service or ADO.NET data services. The data is displayed to the user through
dynamic data-driven UI, using the DataView control. Declarative live-binding
markup in the template provides users with an edit UI, which enables them to
modify the data. The ASP.NET AJAX DataContext class tracks all changes to the data
automatically. All changes can then be sent at once to the server by calling the
SaveChanges method of the DataContext class. A single DataContext instance can
manage change tracking for data returned by different operations on the server,
even if the operations return different types of objects.

The following example shows how to use the DataContext class.

var dataContext = new Sys.Data.DataContext();

dataContext.set_serviceUri("../Services/imagesService.svc");

dataContext.set_saveOperation("SaveImages");

dataContext.initialize();

</script>

<button onclick="dataContext.saveChanges()" class="right">Save Changes</button>

<ul sys:attach="dataview" class="sys-template "

dataview:dataprovider="{{ dataContext }}"

dataview:query="GetImages"

<li>

<input type="text" value="{binding Name}"/><br/>

<input type="text" value="{binding Description}"/>

</li>

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 19

If you are using an ADO.NET data service, you should use the AdoNetDataContext
class instead of the more general-purpose DataContext class. (AdoNetDataContext
derives from DataContext.) The AdoNetDataContext class provides additional
support for features that are specific to ADO.NET, such as identity management,
links and associations between entity sets that are returned in different fetch
operations, hierarchical data, and optimistic concurrency.

Refactoring the Microsoft AJAX Framework Libraries

As noted earlier, the two important script libraries that contain the new AJAX
features in ASP.NET 4.0 are MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js and MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js. As
the name suggests, MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js includes the template-rendering
engine and most of the other new features described in this document. The
MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js file includes classes that are specific to ADO.NET data
services, such as the AdoNetServiceProxy class. Therefore, to use all the new AJAX
features of ASP.NET 4.0, you can use a ScriptManager control that is configured as in
the following example:

<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server">

<asp:ScriptReference Name="MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js" />

<asp:ScriptReference Name="MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js" />

</Scripts>

</asp:ScriptManager>

ASP.NET 4.0 also introduces the ability to use only parts of the ASP.NET AJAX
framework for efficiency, as well as the ability to use the ScriptManager control
without using the ASP.NET AJAX framework at all. The ScriptManager control
provides services such as centralized management of references, support for debug
and release modes, support for localization, and script combining. These services
can be useful to all client-script developers, even those who use JavaScript libraries
other than Microsoft AJAX, such as jQuery. Until now, the ScriptManager control
included the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX library automatically, without providing a
simple way to opt out of it. As a result, when developers used the ScriptManager
control in their pages, the effect was to include the whole Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX
library in their applications.

In ASP.NET 4.0, the default behavior for the ScriptManager control is to include the
complete ASP.NET AJAX library. However, the ScriptManager control supports a new
MicrosoftAjaxMode property that lets you choose a subset of the framework by

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using only portions of the library in the form of split script files. The
MicrosoftAjaxMode property can have one of the following values:

Enabled — All Microsoft AJAX scripts are included (legacy behavior). This is the
default value of the property.

Explicit — Each split script file must be added explicitly; it is up to you to make
sure that you include all scripts that have dependencies on one another.

Disabled — All Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX script features are disabled and the
ScriptManager control does not reference any scripts automatically.

When you use Explicit mode, the scripts that are available are as follows:

• MicrosoftAjaxCore.js

• MicrosoftAjaxComponentModel.js

• MicrosoftAjaxSerialization.js

• MicrosoftAjaxGlobalization.js

• MicrosoftAjaxHistory.js

• MicrosoftAjaxNetwork.js

• MicrosoftAjaxWebServices.js

• MicrosoftAjaxApplicationServices.js

• MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js (New for ASP.NET AJAX 4.0)

• MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js (New for ASP.NET AJAX 4.0)

The following chart shows the dependencies between split scripts. The violet boxes
that are labeled Templates (AdoNetDataContext) and Templates
(DataContext) indicate that only these classes in MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js have
the indicated dependency. Thus, MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js does not require
MicrosoftAjaxWebServices.js unless you use the DataContext class, and it does not
require MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js unless you use the AdoNetDataContext class.

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The WebForms box for the MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js script is green to indicate that it
is included automatically when you set EnablePartialRendering to true (which is the
default setting for the ScriptManager control).

As an example, to use the ASP.NET AJAX browser history feature with no partial
rendering and with MicrosoftAjaxMode set to Explicit, the ScriptManager control
must be configured as in the following example:

<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1"

EnablePartialRendering="false"

MicrosoftAjaxMode="Explicit"

EnableHistory="true"

runat="server">

<asp:ScriptReference Name="MicrosoftAjaxCore.js" />

<asp:ScriptReference Name="MicrosoftAjaxComponentModel.js" />

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 22

<asp:ScriptReference Name="MicrosoftAjaxHistory.js" />

</Scripts>

</CompositeScript>

</asp:ScriptManager>

In the example, EnablePartialRendering has been set to false so that

MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js is not included automatically, and EnableHistory has been
set to true so that the ScriptManager control can use the AJAX browser history
feature. Order is important when you include split scripts — if a script has
dependencies, the ScriptReference elements for those dependencies must be listed
before the ScriptReference element for the script itself.

Note that split script files should be used only by developers who are concerned
about optimizing for very high performance. When split script files are used, they
should be used together with script combining to minimize the numbers of requests
that are required in order to download the scripts.

Web Forms
Web Forms has been a core feature in ASP.NET since the release of ASP.NET 1.0.
Many enhancements have been in this area for ASP.NET 4.0, including the following:

The ability to set meta tags.

More control over view state.

Easier ways to work with browser capabilities.

Support for using ASP.NET routing with Web Forms.

More control over generated IDs.

The ability to persist selected rows in data controls.

More control over rendered HTML in the FormView and ListView controls.

Filtering support for data source controls.

Setting Meta Tags with the Page.Keywords and Page.Description

Properties
One of the smaller additions that has been made to ASP.NET 4.0 Web Forms is the
addition of two properties to the Page class, Keywords and Description. These two

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properties represent corresponding meta tags in your page, as shown in the
following example:

<head id="Head1" runat="server">

<title>Untitled Page</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="These, are, my, keywords' />
<meta name="description" content="This is the description of my page" />

</head>

These two properties work the same way that the page’s Title property does. They
follow these rules:

If there are no meta tags in the head element that match the property names (that
is, name="keywords" for Page.Keywords and name="description" for Page.Description,
meaning that these properties have not been set), the meta tags will be added to
the page when it is rendered.

If there are already meta tags with these names, these properties act as get and set
methods for the contents of the existing tags.

You can set these properties at run time, which lets you get the content from a
database or other source, and which lets you set the tags dynamically to describe
what a particular page is for.

You can also set the Keywords and Description properties in the @ Page directive at
the top of the Web Forms page markup, as in the following example:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"

CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs"

Inherits="_Default"

Keywords="These, are, my, keywords"

Description="This is a description" %>

This will override the meta tag contents (if any) already declared in the page.

Only the contents of the description meta tag is used for improving search listing
previews in Google. (For details, see Improve snippets with a meta description
makeover on the Google Webmaster Central blog.) Google and Windows Live Search
do not use the contents of the keywords for anything, but other search engines
might. For more information, see Meta Keywords Advice on the Search Engine Guide
Web site.

These new properties are a simple feature, but they save you from the requirement
to add these manually or from writing your own code to create the meta tags.

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Enabling View State for Individual Controls
By default, view state is enabled for the page, with the result that each control on
the page potentially stores view state even if it is not required for the application.
Developers can disable view state for individual controls in order to reduce page
size, but must disable it explicitly for individual controls. In ASP.NET 4.0, Web server
controls include a ViewStateMode property that gives you control-level granularity
over whether view state is enabled. This lets you disable view state by default and
then enable it only for the controls that require it in the page.

The ViewStateMode property has three possible values: Enabled, Disabled, and
Inherit. The function of the property is probably clear from the names of these
settings. Enabled enables view state for that control (or for any child controls that
are set to Inherit or that have nothing set). Disabled disables view state, and Inherit
specifies that the control gets its ViewStateMode setting from the parent control.

The following simple example shows how the ViewStateMode property works. The
markup for the controls in the following page includes a ViewStateMode value:

<form id="form1" runat="server">

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e) {

if (!IsPostBack) {

label1.Text = label2.Text = "[DynamicValue]";

base.OnLoad(e);

</script>

<asp:PlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolder1" runat="server" ViewStateMode="Disabled">

Disabled: <asp:Label ID="label1" runat="server" Text="[DeclaredValue]" /><br />

<asp:PlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolder2" runat="server" ViewStateMode="Enabled">

Enabled: <asp:Label ID="label2" runat="server" Text="[DeclaredValue]" />

</asp:PlaceHolder>

<hr />

<asp:button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Postback" />

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As you can see, the code disables view state for the PlaceHolder1 control. The child
label1 control inherits this property value (Inherit is the default value for
ViewStateMode) and therefore saves no view state. In the PlaceHolder2 control,
ViewStateMode is set to Enabled, so label2 inherits this property and saves view
state. When the page is first loaded, the Text property of both Label controls is set
to the string “[DynamicValue]”.

The effect of these settings is that when the page loads the first time, the following
output is displayed in the browser:

Disabled: [DynamicValue]

Enabled: [DynamicValue]

After a postback, however, the following output is displayed:

Disabled: [DeclaredValue]

Enabled: [DynamicValue]

As you probably expect, label1 (whose ViewStateMode value is set to Disabled) has
not preserved the value that it was set to in code. However, label2 (whose
ViewStateMode value is set to Enabled) has preserved its state.

You can also set ViewStateMode in the @ Page directive, as in the following
example:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"

CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs"

Inherits="WebApplication1._Default"

ViewStateMode="Disabled" %>

The Page class is just another control; it acts as the parent control for all the other
controls in the page. This means that no control will save view state unless you set
ViewStateMode to Enabled for that control or a control further up its control
hierarchy, which includes the page. A good use for this feature is with
ContentPlaceHolder controls in master pages, where you can set ViewStateMode to
Disabled for the master page and then enable it individually for ContentPlaceHolder
controls that in turn contain controls that require view state.

Changes to Browser Capabilities

ASP.NET determines the capabilities of the browser that a user is using to browse
your site by using a feature called browser capabilities. In ASP.NET version 3.5
Service Pack 1, you can define the capabilities that a browser has in the following
ways:

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 26

\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\Browsers

After you define the browser capability, you run the following command from the
Visual Studio Command Prompt in order to rebuild the browser capabilities
assembly and add it to the GAC:

aspnet_regbrowsers.exe –I c

For an individual application, you create a .browser file in the application’s

App_Browsers folder.

These approaches require you to change XML files, and for machine-level changes,
you must restart the application after you run the aspnet_regbrowsers.exe process.

ASP.NET 4.0 includes a feature referred to as browser capabilities providers. As the

name suggests, this lets you build a provider that in turn lets you use your own
code to determine browser capabilities.

In practice, developers often do not define custom browser capabilities. Browser

files are hard to update, the process for updating them is fairly complicated, and the
XML syntax for .browser files can be complex to use and define. What would make
this process much easier is if there were a common browser definition syntax, or a
database that contained up-to-date browser definitions, or even a Web service for
such a database. The new browser capabilities providers feature makes these
scenarios possible and practical for third-party developers.

There are two main approaches for using the new ASP.NET 4.0 browser capabilities
provider feature: extending the ASP.NET browser capabilities definition functionality,
or totally replacing it. The following sections describe first how to replace the
functionality, and then how to extend it.

Replacing the ASP.NET Browser Capabilities Functionality

To replace the ASP.NET browser capabilities definition functionality completely,

follow these steps:

1. Create a provider class that derives from HttpCapabilitiesProvider and that

overrides the GetBrowserCapabilities method, as in the following example:

public class CustomProvider : HttpCapabilitiesProvider

public override HttpBrowserCapabilities

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 27

HttpBrowserCapabilities browserCaps = new HttpBrowserCapabilities();

Hashtable values = new Hashtable(180, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);

values[String.Empty] = request.UserAgent;

values["browser"] = "MyCustomBrowser";

browserCaps.Capabilities = values;

return browserCaps;

The code in this example creates a new HttpBrowserCapabilities object,

specifying only the capability named browser and setting that capability to
MyCustomBrowser.

Register the provider with the application.

In order to use a provider with an application, you must add the provider attribute
to the browserCaps section in the Web.config or Machine.config files. (You can also
define the provider attributes in a location element for specific directories in
application, such as in a folder for a specific mobile device.) The following example
shows how to set the provider attribute in a configuration file:

<system.web>

<browserCaps provider="ClassLibrary2.CustomProvider, ClassLibrary2,

Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral" />

</system.web>

Another way to register the new browser capability definition is to use code, as
shown in the following example:

void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)

HttpCapabilitiesBase.BrowserCapabilitiesProvider =

new ClassLibrary2.CustomProvider();

// ...

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 28

This code must run in the Application_Start event of the Global.asax file. Any change
to the BrowserCapabilitiesProvider class must occur before any code in the
application executes, in order to make sure that the cache remains in a valid state
for the resolved HttpCapabilitiesBase object.

Caching the HttpBrowserCapabilities Object

The preceding example has one problem, which is that the code would run each
time the custom provider is invoked in order to get the HttpBrowserCapabilities
object. This can happen multiple times during each request. In the example, the
code for the provider does not do much. However, if the code in your custom
provider performs significant work in order to get the HttpBrowserCapabilities
object, this can result in huge overhead. To prevent this from happening, you can
cache the HttpBrowserCapabilities object. Follow these steps:

2. Create a class that derives from HttpCapabilitiesProvider, like the one in the
following example:

public class CustomProvider : HttpCapabilitiesProvider

public override HttpBrowserCapabilities

GetBrowserCapabilities(HttpRequest request)

string cacheKey = BuildCacheKey();

int cacheTime = GetCacheTime();

HttpBrowserCapabilities browserCaps =

HttpContext.Current.Cache[cacheKey] as

HttpBrowserCapabilities;

if (browserCaps == null)

HttpBrowserCapabilities browserCaps = new

HttpBrowserCapabilities();

Hashtable values = new Hashtable(180,

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 29

values[String.Empty] = request.UserAgent;

values["browser"] = "MyCustomBrowser";

browserCaps.Capabilities = values;

HttpContext.Current.Cache.Insert(cacheKey,

browserCaps, null, DateTime.MaxValue,

TimeSpan.FromSeconds(cacheTime));

return browserCaps;

In the example, the code generates a cache key by calling a custom

BuildCacheKey method, and it gets the length of time to cache by calling a custom
GetCacheTime method. The code then adds the resolved HttpBrowserCapabilities
object to the cache. The object can be retrieved from the cache and reused on
subsequent requests that need your custom provider.

Extending ASP.NET Browser Capabilities Functionality

The previous section described how to create a new HttpBrowserCapabilities object

in ASP.NET 4.0. You can also extend the ASP.NET browser capabilities functionality
by adding new browser capabilities definitions to those that are already in ASP.NET.
You can do this without using the XML browser definitions. The following procedure
shows how.

3. Create a class that derives from HttpCapabilitiesEvaluator and that overrides the
GetBrowserCapabilities method, like the one in the following example:

public class CustomProvider : HttpCapabilitiesEvaluator

public override HttpBrowserCapabilities

GetBrowserCapabilities(HttpRequest request)

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 30

HttpBrowserCapabilities browserCaps =

base.GetHttpBrowserCapabilities(request);

if (browserCaps.Browser == "Unknown")

browserCaps = MyBrowserCapabilitiesEvaulator(request);

return browserCaps;

This code first uses the ASP.NET browser capabilities functionality to try to
identify the browser. However, if no browser is identified based on the
information defined in the request (that is, if the Browser property of the
HttpBrowserCapabilities object is the string “Unknown”), the code calls the
custom provider (MyBrowserCapabilitiesEvaluator) to identify the browser.

Extending Browser Capabilities Functionality by Adding New Capabilities to

Existing Capabilities Definitions

In addition to creating a custom browser definition provider and to dynamically

creating new browser definitions, you can extend existing browser definitions with
additional capabilities. This lets you use a definition that is close to what you want
but lacks only a few capabilities. To do this, use the following steps.

4. Create a class that derives from HttpCapabilitiesEvaluator and that overrides the
GetBrowserCapabilities method, like the one in the following example:

public class CustomProvider : HttpCapabilitiesEvaluator

public override HttpBrowserCapabilities

GetBrowserCapabilities(HttpRequest request)

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 31

base.GetHttpBrowserCapabilities(request);

browserCaps.Frames = true;

browserCaps.Capabilities["MultiTouch"] = "true";

return browserCaps;

The example code extends the existing ASP.NET HttpCapabilitiesEvaluator class

and gets the HttpBrowserCapabilities object that matched the current request
definition by using the following code:

HttpBrowserCapabilities browserCaps =

base.GetHttpBrowserCapabilities(request);

The code can then add or modify a capability for this browser. There are two
ways to specify a new browser capability:

• Add a key/value pair to the IDictionary object that is exposed by the

Capabilities property of the HttpCapabilitiesBase object. In the previous
example, the code adds a capability named MultiTouch with a value of true.

• Set existing properties of the HttpCapabilitiesBase object. In the previous

example, the code sets the Frames property to true. This property is simply
an accessor for the IDictionary object that is exposed by the Capabilities
property.

Note This model applies to any property of HttpBrowserCapabilities,

including control adapters.

Routing in ASP.NET 4.0

One of the features being added in ASP.NET 4.0 is built-in support for using routing
with Web Forms. Routing lets you configure an application to accept request URLs
that do not map to physical files. Instead, you can use routing to define URLs that
are meaningful to users and that can help with search-engine optimization (SEO) for
your application. For example, the URL for a page that displays product categories
in an existing application might look like the following example:

http://website/products.aspx?categoryid=12

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By using routing, you can configure the application to accept the following URL to
render the same information:

http://website/products/software

It has been possible to use routing by using the routing feature that shipped with
ASP.NET 3.5 SP1. (For an example of how this is done, see the entry Using Routing
With WebForms on Phil Haack's blog.) However, ASP.NET 4.0 includes some features
that make it easier to use routing, including the following:

The WebFormRouteHandler class, which is a simple HTTP handler that you use
when you define routes. Its function is to pass data to the page that the request
is routed to.

The new properties HttpRequest.RequestContext and Page.RouteData (which is

really just a proxy for the HttpRequest.RequestContext.RouteData object). These
properties make it easier to access information that is passed from the route.

The following new expression builders, which are defined in

System.Web.Compilation.RouteUrlExpressionBuilder and
System.Web.Compilation.RouteValueExpressionBuilder:

• RouteUrl, which provides a simple way to create a URL that corresponds to a

route URL format within an ASP.NET server control.

• RouteValue, which provides a simple way to extract information from the

RouteContext object.

The RouteParameter class, which makes it easier to pass data contained in a

RouteContext object to a query for a data source control (similar to
FormParameter).

The next sections describe how these new types and members fit together.

Routing to Web Forms Pages

Examine the following code, which defines a Web Forms route by using the new
WebFormRouteHandler class:

public class Global : System.Web.HttpApplication

protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)

RouteTable.Routes.Add("SearchRoute", new Route("search/{searchterm}",

new WebFormRouteHandler("~/search.aspx")));

RouteTable.Routes.Add("UserRoute", new Route("users/{username}",

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 33

As you can see, the code maps the route to a physical page (in the first route, to
~/search.aspx). The first route definition also specifies that the parameter named
searchterm should be extracted from the URL and passed to the page.

The WebFormRouteHandler constructor supports an additional parameter, as shown

in the following example:

WebFormRouteHandler(string virtualPath, bool checkPhysicalUrlAccess);

The checkPhysicalUrlAccess parameter specifies whether the

WebFormRouteHandler object should check both the security permissions for the
physical page being routed to (in this case, search.aspx) and the permissions on the
incoming URL (in this case, search/{searchterm}).

If the value of checkPhysicalUrlAccess is false, only the permissions of the incoming

URL will be checked. These permissions are defined in the Web.config file with the
settings such as the following:

<system.web>

</authorization>

</system.web>

</location>

<system.web>

</authorization>

</system.web>

</location>

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 34

In the example configuration, access is denied to the physical page search.aspx for
all users except those who are in the admin role. When the checkPhysicalUrlAccess
parameter is set to true (which is its default value), only admin users are allowed to
access the URL /search/{searchterm}, because the physical page search.aspx is
restricted to users in that role.

If checkPhysicalUrlAccess is set to false and the site is configured as shown in the

previous example, all authenticated users are allowed to access the access the URL
/search/{searchterm}.

Reading Routing Information in a Web Forms Page

In the code of the Web Forms physical page, how do you access the information that
the routing system has extracted from the URL? (Or access any other information
that another object might have added to the RouteData object.) As noted earlier,
ASP.NET 4.0 provides two new properties for this purpose,
HttpRequest.RequestContext and Page.RouteData. (Page.RouteData just wraps
HttpRequest.RequestContext.RouteData.)

The following example shows how to use Page.RouteData.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

string searchterm = Page.RouteData.Values["searchterm"] as string;

label1.Text = searchterm;

The code simply extracts the value that was passed for the searchterm parameter, as
defined in the example route earlier. Consider the following request URL:

http://localhost/search/scott/

When this request is made, the word "scott" would be rendered in the search.aspx
page.

You can use the method described here to get route data in code. You can also use
expressions in markup that give you access to the same information.

Accessing Routing Information in Markup

Expression builders have been described as a "hidden gem of ASP.NET" (see the
entry Express Yourself With Custom Expression Builders on Phil Haack's blog). It is

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unfortunate that they are not better known, because expression builders are a
powerful and elegant way to work with declarative code.

ASP.NET 4.0 includes two new expression builders for Web Forms routing. The
following example shows how to use them.

<asp:HyperLink ID="HyperLink1" runat="server"

NavigateUrl="<%$RouteUrl:SearchTerm=scott%>">Search for Scott</asp:HyperLink>

In the example, the RouteUrl expression builder is used to define a URL that is
based on a route parameter. This saves you from having to hard-code the complete
URL into the markup, and lets you change the URL structure later, if necessary,
without requiring any change to this link.

Based on the route defined earlier, this markup generates the following URL:

http://localhost/search/scott

Note that ASP.NET automatically works out the correct route (that is, it generates
the correct URL) based on the input parameters. You can also include a route name
in the expression, which lets you specify a route to use.

The following example shows how to use the RouteValue expression builder.

<asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text="<%$RouteValue:SearchTerm%>" />

When the page that contains this control runs, the value "scott" is displayed in the
label.

The RouteValue expression builder makes it very simple to use route data in
markup, and it avoids having to work with the more complex Page.RouteData["x"]
syntax in markup.

Using Route Data for Data Source Control Parameters

The RouteParameter class lets you specify route data as a parameter value for
queries in a data source control. It works much like FormParameter, as shown in the
following example:

<asp:sqldatasource id="SqlDataSource1" runat="server"

connectionstring="<%$ ConnectionStrings:MyNorthwind %>"

selectcommand="SELECT CompanyName,ShipperID FROM Shippers where

CompanyName=@companyname"

<asp:routeparameter name="companyname" RouteKey=”searchterm" />

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 36

</asp:sqldatasource>

In this case, the value of the route parameter searchterm will be used for the
@companyname parameter in the Select statement.

Setting Client IDs

The new ClientIdMode property addresses a long-standing issue in ASP.NET, namely
how controls create the id attribute for elements that they render. Knowing the id
attribute for rendered elements is important if your application includes client script
that references these elements.

The id attribute for Web server controls is generated based on the ClientId property
of the control. The algorithm up to now for generating the id attribute from the
ClientId property has been to concatenate the naming container (if any) with the ID,
and in the case of repeated controls (as in data controls), to add a prefix and a
sequential number. While this has always guaranteed that the IDs of controls in the
page are unique, the algorithm has resulted in control IDs that were not predictable,
and were therefore difficult to reference in client script.

The new ClientIdMode property lets you specify more precisely how the client ID is
generated for controls. You can set the ClientIdMode property for any control,
including for the page. Possible settings are the following:

Legacy – This is equivalent to the ClientID property behavior for earlier versions
of ASP.NET. This is also the default if no ClientIdMode property is set in the
current control’s hierarchy.

Static – This lets you specify an ID to be used as-is, no matter what naming
container the control is in. (This is sometimes referred to as the "you set it, you
get it" option.) The Static option gives you the most control over the ID, but is
the least safe, in that ASP.NET does not prevent you from generating duplicate or
invalid IDs.

Predictable – This option is primarily for use in data controls that use repeating
templates. It uses ID attributes of the parent control's naming containers, but
generated IDs do not have names that contain strings like "ctlxxx". Only a user-
defined ID will be included in the resulting control ID. This setting works in
conjunction with the RowClientIdSuffix property of the parent control to allow
you to define values that create unique IDs for each instance of the control. A
typical example is to use the primary key of a data record as part of the client ID.

Inherit – This setting is the default behavior for controls; it specifies that a
control's ID generation is the same as its parent. Explicitly setting ClientIdMode
to Inherit specifies that this and any child controls whose ClientIdMode property
is either not set or is set to Inherit will take the ClientIdMode value of any parent

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 37

You can set the ClientIdMode property at the page level. This defines the default
ClientIdMode value for all controls in the current page. You set the page-level value
in the @ Page directive, as shown in the following example:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"

CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs"

Inherits="_Default"

ClientIdMode="Predictable" %>

You can also set the ClientIdMode value in the configuration file, either at the
machine level or at the application level. This defines the default ClientIdMode
setting for all controls in all pages in the application. If you set the value at the
machine level, it defines the default ClientIdMode setting for all Web sites on that
computer. The following example shows the ClientIdMode setting in the
configuration file:

<system.web>

</system.web>

As noted earlier, the value of the ClientId property is derived from the naming
container for a control’s parent. In some scenarios, such as when you are using
master pages, controls can end up with IDs like those in the following rendered
HTML:

<input name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$ParentPanel$NamingPanel1$TextBox1"

type="text" value="Hello!"

id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_ParentPanel_NamingPanel1_TextBox1" />

</div>

Even though the input element (from a TextBox control) shown in the markup is only
two naming containers deep in the page (the nested ContentPlaceholder controls),
because of the way master pages are processed, the end result is a control ID like
the following:

ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_ParentPanel_NamingPanel1_TextBox1

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This is a long ID. It is guaranteed to be unique in the page, but is unnecessarily long
for most purposes. Imagine that you want to reduce the length of the rendered ID,
and to have more say in how the ID is generated (for example, you want to
eliminate “ctlxxx” prefixes). The easiest way to achieve this is by setting the
ClietnIdMode property as shown in the following example:

<tc:NamingPanel runat="server" ID="ParentPanel" ClientIdMode="Static">

<tc:NamingPanel runat="server" ID="NamingPanel1" ClientIdMode=”Predictable">

<asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server" Text="Hello!"></asp:TextBox>

</tc:NamingPanel>

In this sample, the ClientIdMode property is set to Static for the outermost
NamingPanel element, and set to Predictable for the inner NamingControl element.
These settings result in the following markup (the rest of the page and the master
page is assumed to be the same as in the previous example):

<input name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$ParentPanel$NamingPanel1$TextBox1"

type="text" value="Hello!" id="ParentPanel_NamingPanel1_TextBox1" />

</div>

This has the effect of resetting the naming hierarchy for any controls inside the
outermost NamingPanel element, and of eliminating the ContentPlaceHolder and
MasterPage IDs from the generated ID. (Note that the name attribute of rendered
elements is unaffected, so that the normal ASP.NET functionality is retained for
events, view state, and so on.) A nice side effect of resetting the naming hierarchy
is that even if you move the markup for the NamingPanel elements to a different
ContentPlaceholder control, the rendered client IDs remain the same.

Note It is up to you to make sure that the rendered control IDs are unique. If
they are not, it can break any functionality that requires unique IDs for individual
HTML elements, such as the client document.getElementById function.

Creating Predictable Client IDs in Data-Bound Controls

The ClientID values that are generated for controls in a data-bound list control can
be long and are not really predictable. The ClientIdMode functionality can help you
have more control over how these IDs are generated.

Look at the following markup, which includes a ListView control:

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 39

onselectedindexchanged="ListView1_SelectedIndexChanged"

ClientIdMode="Predictable"

RowClientIdSuffix="ProductID">

</asp:ListView>

In the previous example, the ClientIdMode and RowClientIdSuffix properties are set
in markup. The RowClientIdSuffix property can be used only in data-bound controls,
and its behavior differs depending on which control you are using. The differences
are these:

GridView control — You can specify the name of one or more columns in the data
source, which are combined at run time to create the client IDs. For example, if
you set RowClientIdSuffix to “ProductName, ProductId”, control IDs for rendered
elements will have a format like the following:

rootPanel_GridView1_ProductNameLabel_Chai_1

ListView control — You can specify a single column in the data source that is
appended to the client ID. For example, if you set RowClientIdSuffix to
“ProductName”, the rendered control IDs will have a format like the following:

rootPanel_ListView1_ProductNameLabel_1

In this case the trailing 1 is derived from the product ID of the current data item.

Repeater control— This control does not support the RowClientIdSuffix property.
In a Repeater control, the index of the current row is used. When you use
ClientIdMode="Predictable" with a Repeater control, client IDs are generated that
have the following format:

Repeater1_ProductNameLabel_0

The trailing 0 is the index of the current row.

The FormView and DetailsView controls do not display multiple rows, so they do not
support the RowClientIdSuffix property.

Persisting Row Selection in Data Controls

The GridView and ListView controls can let users select a row. In previous versions
of ASP.NET, selection has been based on the row index on the page. For example, if
you select the third item on page 1 and then move to page 2, the third item on that
page is selected.

Persisted selection is a new feature that was initially supported only in Dynamic
Data projects in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. When this feature is enabled, the

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current selected item is based on the data key for the item. This means that if you
select the third row on page 1 and move to page 2, nothing is selected on page 2.
When you move back to page 1, the third row is still selected. This is a much more
natural method of selection than the behavior in earlier versions of ASP.NET.
Persisted selection is now supported for the GridView and ListView controls in all
projects by using the PersistedSelection property, as shown in the following
example:

<asp:GridView id="GridView2" runat="server" PersistedSelection="true">

</asp:GridView>

FormView Control Enhancements

The FormView control is designed to give you full control over the rendered markup.
However, consider the following example:

<asp:FormView ID="FormView1" runat="server">

Content!

</ItemTemplate>

</asp:FormView>

This markup renders the following output to the page; notice that the FormView
control renders an HTML table:

<table cellspacing="0" border="0" id="FormView1" style="border-collapse:collapse;">

<tr>

Content!

</td>

</tr>

</table>

A new RenderTable property is now available that lets you specify whether the
FormView control renders using a table. The following example shows how to set
the property.

<asp:FormView ID="FormView1" runat="server" RenderTable="false">

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 41

Content!

This enhancement can make it easier to style the content of the control with CSS,
because no unexpected tags are rendered by the control.

ListView Control Enhancements

The ListView control, which was introduced in ASP.NET 3.5, has all the functionality
of the GridView control while giving you complete control over the output. This
control has been made easier to use in ASP.NET 4.0. The earlier version of the
control required that you specify a layout template that contained a server control
with a known ID. The following markup shows a typical example of how to use the
ListView control in ASP.NET 3.5.

<asp:ListView ID="ListView1" runat="server">

<asp:PlaceHolder ID="ItemPlaceHolder" runat="server"></asp:PlaceHolder>

</LayoutTemplate>

<% Eval("LastName")%>

</ItemTemplate>

</asp:ListView>

In ASP.NET 4.0, the ListView control does not require a layout template. The markup
shown in the previous example can be replaced with the following markup:

<asp:ListView ID="ListView1" runat="server">

<% Eval("LastName")%>

</ItemTemplate>

</asp:ListView>

Filtering Data with the QueryExtender Control

A very common task for developers who create data-driven Web pages is to filter
data. This traditionally has been performed by building Where clauses in data
source controls. This approach can be complicated, and in some cases the Where

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syntax does not let you take advantage of the full functionality of the underlying
database.

To make filtering easier, a new QueryExtender control has been added in ASP.NET
4.0. This control can be added to EntityDataSource or LinqDataSource controls in
order to filter the data returned by these controls. Because the QueryExtender
control relies on LINQ, the filter is applied on the database server before the data is
sent to the page, which results in very efficient operations.

The QueryExtender control supports a variety of filter options. The following

sections describe these options and provide examples of how to use them.

For the search option, the QueryExtender control uses provided text to find records
in specified fields. In the following example, the control uses the text that is entered
in the TextBoxSearch control and searches for its contents in the ProductName and
Supplier.CompanyName columns in the data returned from the LinqDataSource control.

<asp:LinqDataSource ID="dataSource" runat="server"> TableName="Products">

</asp:LinqDataSource>

<asp:QueryExtender TargetControlID="dataSource" runat="server">

<asp:SearchExpression DataFields="ProductName, Supplier.CompanyName"

SearchType="StartsWith">

<asp:ControlParameter ControlID="TextBoxSearch" />

</asp:SearchExpression>

</asp:QueryExtender>

Range

The range option is similar to the search option, but specifies a pair of values to
define the range. In the following example, the QueryExtender control searches the
UnitPrice column in the data returned from the LinqDataSource control. The range is
read from the TextBoxFrom and TextBoxTo controls on the page.

<asp:LinqDataSource ID="dataSource" runat="server"> TableName="Products">

</asp:LinqDataSource>

<asp:QueryExtender TargetControlID="dataSource" runat="server">

<asp:RangeExpression DataField="UnitPrice" MinType="Inclusive"

MaxType="Inclusive">

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 43

<asp:ControlParameter ControlID="TexBoxTo" />

</asp:RangeExpression>

</asp:QueryExtender>

PropertyExpression

The property expression option lets you define a comparison to a property value. If
the expression evaluates to true, the data that is being examined is returned. In the
following example, the QueryExtender control filters data by comparing the data in
the Discontinued column to the value from the CheckBoxDiscontinued control on the
page.

<asp:LinqDataSource ID="dataSource" runat="server"> TableName="Products">

</asp:LinqDataSource>

<asp:QueryExtender TargetControlID="dataSource" runat="server">

<asp:PropertyExpression>

<asp:ControlParameter ControlID="CheckBoxDiscontinued" Name="Discontinued" />

</asp:PropertyExpression>

</asp:QueryExtender>

CustomExpression

Finally, you can specify a custom expression to use with the QueryExtender control.
This option lets you call a function in the page that defines custom filter logic. The
following example shows how to declaratively specify a custom expression in the
QueryExtender control.

<asp:LinqDataSource ID="dataSource" runat="server"> TableName="Products">

</asp:LinqDataSource>

<asp:QueryExtender TargetControlID="dataSource" runat="server">

<asp:CustomExpression OnQuerying="FilterProducts" />

</asp:QueryExtender>

The following example shows the custom function that is invoked by the
QueryExtender control. In this case, instead of using a database query that includes
a Where clause, the code uses a LINQ query to filter the data.

protected void FilterProducts(object sender, CustomExpressionEventArgs e)

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 44

e.Query = from p in e.Query.Cast<Product>()

where p.UnitPrice >= 10

select p;

These examples show only one expression being used in the QueryExtender control
at a time. However, you can include multiple expressions inside the QueryExtender
control.

Dynamic Data
Dynamic Data was introduced in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 release in mid-2008.
This feature provides many enhancements for creating data-driven applications,
including the following:

A RAD experience for quickly building a data-driven Web site.

Automatic validation that is based on constraints defined in the data model.

The ability to easily change the markup that is generated for fields in the
GridView and DetailsView controls by using field templates that are part of your
Dynamic Data project.

Note For more information, see the Dynamic Data documentation in the
MSDN Library.

For ASP.NET 4.0, Dynamic Data has been enhanced to give developers even more
power for quickly building data-driven Web sites.

Declarative DynamicDataManager Control Syntax

The DynamicDataManager control has been enhanced so that you can configure it
declaratively, as with most controls in ASP.NET, instead of only in code. The markup
for the DynamicDataManager control looks like the following example:

<asp:DynamicDataManager ID="DynamicDataManager1" runat="server"

AutoLoadForeignKeys="true">

<asp:DataControlReference ControlID="GridView1" />

</DataControls>

</asp:DynamicDataManager>

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 45

</asp:GridView>

This markup enables Dynamic Data behavior for the GridView1 control that is
referenced in the DataControls section of the DynamicDataManager control.

Entity Templates
Entity templates offer a new way to customize the layout of data without requiring
you to create a custom page. Page templates use the FormView control (instead of
the DetailsView control, as used in page templates in earlier versions of Dynamic
Data) and the DynamicEntity control to render Entity templates. This gives you
more control over the markup that is rendered by Dynamic Data.

The following list shows the new project directory layout that contains entity
templates:

\DynamicData\EntityTemplates

\DynamicData\EntityTemplates\Default.ascx

\DynamicData\EntityTemplates\Default_Edit.ascx

\DynamicData\EntityTemplates\Default_Insert.ascx

The EntityTemplate directory contains templates for how to display data model
objects. By default, objects are rendered by using the Default.ascx template, which
provides markup that looks just like the markup created by the DetailsView control
used by Dynamic Data in ASP.NET 3.5 SP1. The following example shows the
markup for the Default.ascx control:

<asp:EntityTemplate runat="server" ID="TemplateContainer1">

<tr

<td>

<asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" OnInit="Label_Init" />

</td>

<td>

<asp:DynamicControl runat="server" OnInit="DynamicControl_Init" />

</td>

</tr>

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 46

</asp:EntityTemplate>

The default templates can be edited to change the look and feel for the entire site.
There are templates for display, edit, and insert operations. New templates can be
added based on the name of the data object in order to change the look and feel of
just one type of object. For example, you can add the following template:

\DynamicData\EntityTemplates\Products.aspx

The template might contain the following markup:

<tr>

<td><asp:DynamicControl runat="server" DataField="ProductName" /></td>

<td>Category</td>

<td><asp:DynamicControl runat="server" DataField="Category" /></td>

</tr>

The new entity templates are displayed on a page by using the new DynamicEntity
control. At run time, this control is replaced with the contents of the entity template.
The following markup shows the FormView control in the Detail.aspx page template
that uses the entity template. Notice the DynamicEntity element in the markup.

<asp:FormView runat="server" ID="FormView1"

DataSourceID="DetailsDataSource"

OnItemDeleted="FormView1_ItemDeleted">

<table class="DDDetailsTable" cellpadding="6">

<asp:DynamicEntity runat="server" />

<asp:DynamicHyperLink ID="EditHyperLink" runat="server"

Action="Edit" Text="Edit" />

<asp:LinkButton ID="DeleteLinkButton" runat="server"

CommandName="Delete"

CausesValidation="false"

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 47

Text="Delete" />

</td>

</tr>

</table>

</ItemTemplate>

</asp:FormView>

New Field Templates for URLs and E-mail Addresses

ASP.NET 4.0 introduces two new built-in field templates, EmailAddress.ascx and
Url.ascx. These templates are used for fields that are marked as EmailAddress or Url
with the DataType attribute. For EmailAddress objects, the field is displayed as a
hyperlink that is created by using the mailto: protocol. When users click the link, it
opens the user's e-mail client and creates a skeleton message. Objects typed as Url
are displayed as ordinary hyperlinks.

The following example shows how fields would be marked.

[DataType(DataType.EmailAddress)]

public object HomeEmail { get; set; }

[DataType(DataType.Url)]

public object Website { get; set; }

Creating Links with the DynamicHyperLink Control

Dynamic Data uses the new routing feature that was added in the .NET Framework
3.5 SP1 to control the URLs that end users see when they access the Web site. The
new DynamicHyperLink control makes it easy to build links to pages in a Dynamic
Data site. The following example shows how to use the DynamicHyperLink control:

<asp:DynamicHyperLink ID="ListHyperLink" runat="server"

Action="List" TableName="Products">

Show all products

</asp:DynamicHyperLink>

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This markup creates a link that points to the List page for the Products table based
on routes that are defined in the Global.asax file. The control automatically uses the
default table name that the Dynamic Data page is based on.

Support for Inheritance in the Data Model

Both the Entity Framework and LINQ to SQL support inheritance in their data
models. An example of this might be a database that has an InsurancePolicy table. It
might also contain CarPolicy and HousePolicy tables that have the same fields as
InsurancePolicy and then add more fields. Dynamic Data has been modified to
understand inherited objects in the data model and to support scaffolding for the
inherited tables.

Support for Many-to-Many Relationships (Entity Framework Only)

The Entity Framework has rich support for many-to-many relationships between
tables, which is implemented by exposing the relationship as a collection on an
Entity object. New ManyToMany.ascx and ManyToMany_Edit.ascx field templates have
been added to provide support for displaying and editing data that is involved in
many-to-many relationships.

New Attributes to Control Display and Support Enumerations

The DisplayAttribute has been added to give you additional control over how fields
are displayed. The DisplayName attribute in earlier versions of Dynamic Data
allowed you to change the name that is used as a caption for a field. The new
DisplayAttribute class lets you specify more options for displaying a field, such as
the order in which a field is displayed and whether a field will be used as a filter. The
attribute also provides independent control of the name used for the labels in a
GridView control, the name used in a DetailsView control, the help text for the field,
and the watermark used for the field (if the field accepts text input).

The EnumDataTypeAttribute class has been added to let you map fields to
enumerations. When you apply this attribute to a field, you specify an enumeration
type. Dynamic Data uses the new Enumeration.ascx field template to create UI for
displaying and editing enumeration values. The template maps the values from the
database to the names in the enumeration.

Enhanced Support for Filters

Dynamic Data 1.0 shipped with built-in filters for Boolean columns and foreign-key
columns. The filters did not allow you to specify whether they were displayed up or
in what order they were displayed. The new DisplayAttribute attribute addresses

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both of these issues by giving you control over whether a column shows up as a
filter and in what order it will be displayed.

An additional enhancement is that filtering support has been rewritten to use the
new QueryExtender feature of Web Forms. This lets you create filters without
requiring knowledge of the data source control that the filters will be used with.
Along with these extensions, filters have also been turned into template controls,
which allows you to add new ones. Finally, the DisplayAttribute class mentioned
earlier allows the default filter to be overridden, in the same way that UIHint allows
the default field template for a column to be overridden.

Visual Studio 2010 Web Designer Improvements

The Web page designer in Visual Studio 2010 has been enhanced for greater CSS
compatibility, includes additional support for HTML and ASP.NET markup snippets,
and features a redesigned version of IntelliSense for JScript.

Improved CSS Compatibility

The Visual Web Developer designer in Visual Studio 2010 has been updated to
improve CSS 2.1 standards compliance. The designer better preserves integrity of
the HTML source and has greater overall robustness than in previous versions of
Visual Studio. Under the hood, architectural improvements have also been made
that will better enable future enhancements in rendering, layout, and serviceability.

HTML and JScript Snippets

In the HTML editor, IntelliSense auto-completes tag names. The IntelliSense
Snippets feature auto-completes entire tags and more. In Visual Studio 2010,
IntelliSense snippets are supported for JScript, alongside C# and Visual Basic, which
were supported in earlier versions of Visual Studio.

Visual Studio 2010 includes over 200 snippets that help you auto-complete common
ASP.NET and HTML tags, including required attributes (such as runat="server") and
common attributes specific to a tag (such as ID, DataSourceID, ControlToValidate,
and Text).

You can download additional snippets, or you can write your own snippets that
encapsulate the blocks of markup that you or your team use for common tasks.

JScript IntelliSense Enhancements

In Visual 2010, JScript IntelliSense has been redesigned to provide an even richer
editing experience. IntelliSense now recognizes objects that have been dynamically

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generated by methods such as registerNamespace and by similar techniques used
by other JavaScript frameworks. Performance has been improved to analyze large
libraries of script and to display IntelliSense with little or no processing delay.
Compatibility has been dramatically increased to support nearly all third-party
libraries and to support diverse coding styles. Documentation comments are now
parsed as you type and are immediately leveraged by IntelliSense.

Web Application Deployment with Visual Studio 2010

Today, deploying a Web application is not as easy as it should be. ASP.NET
developers often find that they encounter issues such as the following:

Deploying to a shared hosting site requires technologies such as FTP, which can
be slow. In addition, you must manually perform tasks such as running SQL
scripts to configure a database and you must change IIS settings, such as
configuring a virtual directory folder as an application.

In an enterprise environment, in addition to deploying the Web application files,

administrators frequently must modify ASP.NET configuration files and IIS
settings. Database administrators must run a series of SQL scripts to get the
application database running. Such installations are labor intensive, often take
hours to complete, and must be carefully documented.

Visual Studio 2010 includes technologies that address these issues and that let you
seamlessly deploy Web applications. One of these technologies is the IIS Web
Deployment Tool (MsDeploy.exe).

Note The IIS Web Deployment Tool is a free download that is currently in Beta
test. For download information, see the entry The Web Deployment Tool Beta 2 is
now available! on the Microsoft Web Deployment Tool team blog.

Web deployment features in Visual Studio 2010 include the following major areas:

Web packaging

Web configuration-file transformation

Database deployment

One-Click publishing

The following sections provide details about these features.

Web Packaging
Visual Studio 2010 uses the MSDeploy tool to create a compressed (.zip) file for your
application, which is referred to as a Web package. The package file contains
metadata about your application plus the following content:

ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Web Development Overview 51

The actual Web content, which includes Web pages, user controls, static content
(images and HTML files), and so on.

SQL Server database schemas and data.

Security certificates, components to install in the GAC, registry settings, and so

on.

A Web package can be copied to any server and then installed manually by using IIS
Manager. Alternatively, for automated deployment, the package can be installed by
using command-line commands or by using deployment APIs.

Web.Config Transformation
For Web application deployment, Visual Studio 2010 introduces XML Document
Transform (XDT), which is a feature that lets you transform a Web.config file from
development settings to production settings. Transformation settings are specified
in transform files named web.debug.config, web.release.config, and so on. (The names
of these files match MSBuild configurations.) A transform file includes just the
changes that you need to make to a deployed Web.config file. You specify the
changes by using simple syntax.

The following example shows a portion of a web.release.config file that might be

produced for deployment of your release configuration. The Replace keyword in the
example specifies that during deployment the connectionString node in the
Web.config file will be replaced with the values that are listed in the example.

<add name="BlogDB" connectionString="connection string detail]" />

</connectionStrings>

Database Deployment
A Visual Studio 2010 deployment package can include dependencies on SQL Server
databases. As part of the package definition, you provide the connection string for
your source database. When you create the Web package, Visual Studio 2010
creates SQL scripts for the database schema and optionally for the data, and then
adds these to the package. You can also provide custom SQL scripts and specify the
sequence in which they should run on the server. At deployment time, you provide a
connection string that is appropriate for the target server; the deployment process
then uses this connection string to run the scripts that create the database schema
and add the data.

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One-Click Publishing
Visual Studio 2010 also lets you use the IIS remote management service to publish
a Web application to a remote server. You can create a publish profile for your
hosting account or for testing servers or staging servers. Each profile can save
appropriate credentials securely. You can then deploy to any of the target servers
with one click by using the Web One Click Publish toolbar. With Visual Studio 2010,
you can also publish by using the MSBuild command line. This lets you configure
your team build environment to include publishing in a continuous-integration
model.

To view video presentations about Web application deployment in Visual Studio

2010, see the entry VS 2010 for Web Developer Previews on Vishal Joshi's blog.

Resources
The following Web sites provide additional information about ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual
Studio 2010.

http://www.asp.net/ — The main web resource for ASP.NET developers.

http://www.asp.net/dynamicdata/ — The main Web resource for ASP.NET

Dynamic Data.

http://www.asp.net/ajax/ — The main Web resource for ASP.NET AJAX

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/ — The Visual Web Developer Team blog,

which includes information about features in Visual Studio 2010.

http://www.codeplex.com/aspnet — The main Web resource for preview releases

of ASP.NET.

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© 2009 Microsoft Corporation
Disclaimer
This is a preliminary document and may be changed substantially prior to final
commercial release of the software described herein.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft
Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft
must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a
commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy
of any information presented after the date of publication.

This White Paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO

WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS
DOCUMENT.

Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user.
Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
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Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other

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of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks,
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Unless otherwise noted, the example companies, organizations, products, domain

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