Building Effective ASP.NET 3.5 Web Apps using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

This course provides the necessary skills and techniques to design and write scalable, robust and secure Web applications using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and the ASP.NET 3.5 Framework.

You will gain in-depth technical knowledge of ASP.NET and its related technologies and obtain practical insights into developing enterprise-scale, data-driven Web applications. Throughout the course you will be building a fully functional ASP.NET 3.5 web solution, using best practices including writing secure code to protect against potential malicious attacks.

The course is presented as a mixture of lectures and hands-on exercises. Instructions and solutions are provided in both C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 2008, enabling you to work with your choice of language. (Before attending, delegates must already know one of these .NET languages.)

Note that existing ASP.NET 1.x developers should attend the course Accelerated Migration to ASP.NET 3.5

Prerequisites

Delegates should have a good knowledge of HTML and web page creation up to the levels provided by attending our CSS, Intro to HTML and JavaScript courses.

Delegates should also have an existing knowledge of a .NET programming language (C#2.0/3.0 or VB 2005/2008). Delegates without these skills would benefit from attending a .NET programming language course.

Delegates will learn how to

• Create file- and HTTP-based web projects using Visual Studio 2008
• Use validation techniques to ensure input data accuracy
• Use Master Pages and CSS to enforce design principles
• Personalise web applications using profiles, themes and skins
• Create modular user interfaces using web parts and user controls
• Implement menus, wizards and other site navigation mechanisms
• Diagnose problems and implement a coherent error handling architecture
• Create data-driven and data-bound user interfaces using XML, relational data sources, and LINQ
• Understand and manage state across and within page transitions
• Implement authentication, authorisation and role based security using the ASP.NET 3.5 membership system and the login controls
• Extend the pipeline using custom modules and handlers
• Describe and implement ASP.NET AJAX functionality to provide a richer UI experience
• Create and use simple Web Services

Course Outline

Module 1: Fundamentals

• Internet fundamentals review
• Application configuration
• Processing model
• Page execution
• Event lifecycle
• Object model overview

Module 2: Using Visual Studio 2008

• Creating a Web Site
• Project and solution structures
• ASP.NET folder structure
• Essential features for Web development
• Understanding code separation
• Copying and Publishing a Web Site

Module 3: Designing your web site

• Overview of layout options
• Creating common layout with Master Pages
• Server controls overview
• Stylesheet designer
• Themes and Skins

Module 4: Validation and Error Handling

• The need for validation
• Validation on the Client and Server
• ASP.NET validation controls
• Ensuring correctness in posted data
• Exception handling in ASP.NET

Module 5: Site Navigation

• Navigation scenarios
• Basic navigation
• Crosspage postbacks
• Accessing the previous page
• Creating Wizards; Templating Wizards.
• The Navigation API and Controls
• UrlRewriting

Module 6: User controls and Web Parts

• Introduction to Usercontrols
• Overview of Custom Controls
• Building common page parts
• Web Parts

Module 7: Components and Architecture

• Web architecture considerations
• Component based development
• Data access issues
• Distributed architectural issues

Module 8: ADO.NET

• ADO.NET managed providers
• Configuring ASP.NET applications to use ADO.NET
• Using XML data sources
• LINQ

Module 9: LINQ

• Object-Relational designer
• LINQ to SQL

Module 10: Databinding and presentation

• Data source controls
• GridView, FormView, DetailsView
• ListView, DataPager
• Treeview

Module 11: Caching

• Cache API
• Caching data
• Managing data refreshing – Cache dependencies
• Output caching and substitution

Module 12: State Management

• Managing state within a page
• Managing state across pages
• Managing state within a single visit
• Managing long-term state across visits

Module 13: Securing access to Web applications

• IIS authentication/authorization
• ASP.NET authentication/authorization
• Security objects
• Scenario based best practice
• Custom (Forms) authentication
• Using the Membership and Roles APIs
• Login controls

Module 14: Under the covers

• ASP.NET pipeline
• Writing Custom ASP.NET modules
• Writing Custom ASP.NET handlers

Module 15: Web Services

• Exposing a simple Web Service
• Consuming a simple Web Service
• Overview of WSE 3.0
• Consuming a WCF service

Module 16: ASP.NET AJAX

• AJAX Scenarios
• Infrastructure
• ASP.NET AJAX controls
• Introduction to ASP.NET AJAX script library
• Consuming a Web Service from the client