ASP.NET 3.5. In C# and VB. Beginning. Wrox Programmer to Programmer TM. Imar Spaanjaars

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1 Wrox Programmer to Programmer TM Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB Imar Spaanjaars Updates, source code, and Wrox technical support at

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3 Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 Chapter 1: Getting Started with ASP.NET Chapter 2: Building an ASP.NET Web Site Chapter 3: Designing Your Web Pages Chapter 4: Working with ASP.NET Controls Chapter 5: Programming Your ASP.NET Web Pages Chapter 6: Creating Consistent Looking Web Sites Chapter 7: Navigation Chapter 8: User Controls Chapter 9: Validating User Input Chapter 10: ASP.NET AJAX Chapter 11: Introduction to Databases Chapter 12: Displaying and Updating Data Chapter 13: LINQ Chapter 14: Presenting Data Advanced Topics Chapter 15: Security in Your ASP.NET 3.5 Web Site Chapter 16: Personalizing Web Sites Chapter 17: Exception Handling, Debugging, and Tracing Chapter 18: Deploying Your Web Site Appendix A: Exercise Answers Appendix B: Configuring SQL Server Index

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5 Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB Imar Spaanjaars

6 Beginning ASP.NET 3.5: In C# and VB Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN Copyright 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada ISBN: Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spaanjaars, Imar. Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 / Imar Spaanjaars. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN (pbk. : web) 1. Active server pages. 2. Web sites Design. 3. Microsoft.NET. I. Title. TK A26S '76 dc No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) , fax (978) Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) , fax (317) , or online at Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) , outside the United States at (317) or fax (317) Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, Wrox, the Wrox logo, Wrox Programmer to Programmer, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

7 To my dad I know you d be proud

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9 About the Author Imar Spaanjaars graduated in Leisure Management at the Leisure Management School in the Netherlands, but he quickly changed his career path into the Internet world. After working for a large corporation and doing some freelance work, he now works for Design IT ( an IT company in the Netherlands specializing in Internet and intranet applications built with Microsoft technologies like ASP.NET 3.5. As a technical director and software designer, he s responsible for designing and building medium- to large-scaled e-commerce web sites and portals. He s also the tech lead for Dynamicweb Nederland, the Dutch branch of the popular Danish Content Management System Dynamicweb ( Imar has written books on ASP.NET 2.0 and Macromedia Dreamweaver, all published under the Wrox brand. He is also one of the top contributors to the Wrox Community Forum at p2p.wrox.com, where he shares his knowledge with fellow programmers. Imar lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands, with his girlfriend, Fleur. You can contact him through his personal web site at

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11 Credits Acquisitions Director Jim Minatel Development Editor Brian Herrmann Lead Technical Editor Peter Lanoie Technical Editors Alexei Gorkov John Dunagan Robert Searing Editorial Manager Mary Beth Wakefield Production Manager Tim Tate Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Richard Swadley Vice President and Executive Publisher Joseph B. Wikert Project Coordinator, Cover Lynsey Stanford Compositor Laurie Stewart, Happenstance Type-O-Rama Proofreaders Kathryn Duggan David Parise Rachel Gunn Indexer Melanie Belkin

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13 Acknowledgments Writing a book is probably one of the most exhausting but fun and rewarding things I have ever done. During writing you have to invest a lot of time and effort to put your ideas down into something that is worth reading by others. After the hard work is done and the book is written, the reward comes from readers like you who send me s, contact me through my web site, or participate in the online discussion forums at p2p.wrox.com to discuss the book. As Norman Mailer put it, writing a book is the closest that men ever get to childbearing. Although I think there is probably some truth in that statement, I also realize there is one big difference: writing a book is not something you have to do on your own. Although only my name is on the cover, I owe a lot to many people who helped me write this book. First of all I d like to thank Jim Minatel from Wiley for asking me to pick up this project and having faith in my ability to bring it to a good end. I would also like to thank Brian Herrmann for his editorial work. I know it wasn t always easy with the number of reviewers we had, but I think it turned out pretty well. I am very thankful for the work done by the technical editors on this book: Alexei, John, and Rob thanks, guys, for all your hard work! I particularly want to thank the lead technical editor, Peter Lanoie, who has made a major contribution, both in shaping the direction of the book and in assuring its technical accuracy. Thank you, Peter! I am also very glad for the support I got from the people at Design IT. Thanks to all who have reviewed my work and participated in my discussions on the book s direction. Another person I owe a lot to is Anne Ward from Blue Violet, a UK-based web and graphic design company. Anne has done most of the designs used in this book, which I highly appreciate. Thanks, Anne! The concert pictures you see in this book come from her good friend Nigel D. Nudds, who kindly let me use pictures from his collection. Finally, I would like to thank my lovely girlfriend, Fleur. You may get tired of hearing it, but I really appreciate the support you have given me throughout this project. I couldn t and wouldn t have done it without you!

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15 Contents Acknowledgments Introduction xi xxiii Chapter 1: Getting Started with ASP.NET Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2 Getting Visual Web Developer 3 Installing Visual Web Developer Express Edition 3 Creating Your First ASP.NET 3.5 Web Site 5 An Introduction to ASP.NET Understanding HTML 10 A First Look at ASP.NET Markup 14 A Tour of the IDE 15 The Main Development Area 15 Informational Windows 21 Customizing the IDE 22 Rearranging Windows 22 Modifying the Toolbox 23 Customizing the Document Window 25 Customizing Toolbars 25 Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts 26 Resetting Your Changes 27 The Sample Application 28 Practical Tips on Visual Web Developer 30 Summary 30 Exercises 31 Chapter 2: Building an ASP.NET Web Site 33 Creating Web Sites with VWD Different Project Types 34 Choosing the Right Web Site Template 35 Creating and Opening a New Web Site 36 Working with Files in Your Web Site 39 The Many File Types of an ASP.NET 3.5 Web Site 39 Adding Existing Files 43

16 Contents Organizing Your Site 44 Special File Types 46 Working with Web Forms 47 The Different Views on Web Forms 47 Choosing between Code Behind and Pages with Inline Code 48 Adding Markup to Your Page 53 Connecting Pages 59 Practical Tips on Working with Web Forms 61 Summary 61 Exercises 62 Chapter 3: Designing Your Web Pages 63 Why Do You Need CSS? 63 Problems of HTML Formatting 64 How CSS Fixes Formatting Problems 65 An Introduction to CSS 65 CSS The Language 69 The Style Sheet 69 Adding CSS to Your Pages 80 Working with CSS in Visual Web Developer 82 Creating New Styles in External Style Sheets 83 Creating Embedded and Inline Style Sheets 88 Applying Styles 94 Managing Styles 96 Practical Tips on Working with CSS 99 Summary 100 Exercises 100 Chapter 4: Working with ASP.NET Controls 103 Introduction to Server Controls 103 A Closer Look at ASP.NET Server Controls 107 Defining Controls in Your Pages 108 Common Properties for All Controls 108 Types of Controls 110 Standard Controls 111 HTML Controls 124 Data Controls 124 Validation Controls 125 Navigation Controls 125 Login Controls 125 xiv

17 Contents Ajax Extensions 125 WebParts 125 The ASP.NET State Engine 126 What Is State and Why Is It Important? 126 How the State Engine Works 127 Not All Controls Rely on ViewState 131 A Note About ViewState and Performance 131 Practical Tips on Working with Controls 132 Summary 132 Exercises 133 Chapter 5: Programming Your ASP.NET Web Pages 135 Introduction to Programming 136 Data Types and Variables 136 Converting Data Types 140 Using Arrays and Collections 142 Statements 146 Operators 147 Making Decisions 154 Loops 161 Organizing Code 164 Methods: Functions and Subroutines 165 The App_Code Folder 167 Organizing Code with Namespaces 171 Writing Comments 173 Object Orientation Basics 176 Important OO Terminology 176 Events 188 Practical Tips on Programming 189 Summary 190 Exercises 191 Chapter 6: Creating Consistent Looking Web Sites 193 Consistent Page Layout with Master Pages 194 Creating Master Pages 196 Creating Content Pages 198 Using a Centralized Base Page 203 An Introduction to the ASP.NET Page Life Cycle 204 Implementing the Base Page 206 Creating Reusable Page Templates 210 xv

18 Contents Themes 214 Different Types of Themes 215 Choosing Between Theme and StyleSheetTheme 215 Applying Themes 215 Extending Themes 219 Dynamically Switching Themes 222 Skins 228 Creating a Skin File 229 Named Skins 231 A Final Note on Skins 232 Practical Tips on Creating Consistent Pages 232 Summary 233 Exercises 234 Chapter 7: Navigation 235 Different Ways to Move around Your Site 236 Understanding Absolute and Relative URLs 236 Understanding Default Documents 240 Using the Navigation Controls 241 Architecture of the Navigation Controls 242 Examining the Web.sitemap File 242 Using the Menu Control 244 Using the TreeView Control 253 Using the SiteMapPath Control 257 Programmatic Redirection 259 Programmatically Redirecting the Client to a Different Page 259 Server-Side Redirects 261 Practical Tips on Navigation 264 Summary 264 Exercises 265 Chapter 8: User Controls 267 Introduction to User Controls 267 Creating User Controls 268 Adding User Controls to a Content Page or Master Page 271 Site-Wide Registration of User Controls 274 User Control Caveats 275 Adding Logic to Your User Controls 277 Creating Your Own Data Types for Properties 277 xvi

19 Contents Implementing ViewState Properties 283 ViewState Considerations 288 Practical Tips on User Controls 289 Summary 289 Exercises 290 Chapter 9: Validating User Input 291 Gathering Data from the User 292 Validating User Input in Web Forms 293 Processing Data at the Server 307 Sending from Your Web Site 307 Reading from Text Files 313 Practical Tips on Validating Data 318 Summary 318 Exercises 319 Chapter 10: ASP.NET AJAX 321 Introducing Ajax 322 Using ASP.NET AJAX in Your Projects 323 Creating Flicker-Free Pages 323 Providing Feedback to Users 328 Using the Timer Control 332 Using Web Services in Ajax Web Sites 337 What Are Web Services? 337 Creating Web Services 338 Using Web Services in Your Ajax Web Site 342 This Is Just the Beginning 349 Practical Ajax Tips 349 Summary 350 Exercises 351 Chapter 11: Introduction to Databases 353 What Is a Database? 354 Different Kinds of Relational Databases 355 Using SQL to Work with Database Data 355 Retrieving and Manipulating Data 358 Creating Your Own Tables 371 Data Types in SQL Server 371 xvii

20 Contents Understanding Primary Keys and Identities 373 Creating Relationships Between Tables 377 Practical Database Tips 380 Summary 381 Exercises 381 Chapter 12: Displaying and Updating Data 383 Data Controls 383 Data-Bound Controls 384 Data Source Controls 386 Data Source and Data-Bound Controls Working Together 386 Displaying and Editing Data with GridView 386 Inserting Data with DetailsView 392 Storing Your Connection Strings in web.config 395 Filtering Data 397 Customizing the Appearance of the Data Controls 403 Configuring Columns or Fields of Data-Bound Controls 403 Updating and Inserting Data 409 Using DetailsView to Insert and Update Data 409 Practical Tips for Displaying and Updating Data 422 Summary 423 Exercises 423 Chapter 13: LINQ 425 Introducing LINQ 426 Different Types of LINQ 427 Introducing LINQ to SQL 427 Mapping Your Data Model to an Object Model 428 Introducing Query Syntax 433 Standard Query Operators 433 Shaping Data with Anonymous Types 437 Using Server Controls with LINQ Queries 443 New Controls Introduced in ASP.NET A Few Notes about Performance 471 Practical LINQ Tips 472 Summary 472 Exercises 473 xviii

21 Contents Chapter 14: Presenting Data Advanced Topics 475 Formatting Your Controls Using Styles 476 An Introduction to Styles 477 Combining Styles, Themes, and Skins 481 Handling Events 485 The ASP.NET Page and Controls Life Cycles Revisited 485 Handling Errors that Occur in the Data Source Controls 498 Caching 502 Common Pitfalls with Caching Data 503 Different Ways to Cache Data in ASP.NET Web Applications 505 Practical Data Tips 513 Summary 514 Exercises 515 Chapter 15: Security in Your ASP.NET 3.5 Web Site 517 Introducing Security 518 Identity: Who Are You? 518 Authentication: How Can You Prove Who You Are? 518 Authorization: What Are You Allowed to Do? 518 An Introduction to the ASP.NET Application Services 519 Introducing the Login Controls 520 The Login Controls 525 Configuring Your Web Application 537 The Role Manager 541 Configuring the Role Manager 541 Managing Users with the WSAT 542 Configuring the Web Application to Work with Roles 546 Programmatically Checking Roles 551 Practical Security Tips 554 Summary 555 Exercises 555 Chapter 16: Personalizing Web Sites 557 Understanding Profile 558 Configuring the Profile 558 Using the Profile 565 xix

22 Contents Other Ways of Dealing with Profile 583 Anonymous Identification 583 Cleaning Up Old Anonymous Profiles 584 Looking at Other Users Profiles 585 Practical Personalization Tips 589 Summary 589 Exercises 590 Chapter 17: Exception Handling, Debugging, and Tracing 591 Exception Handling 592 Different Types of Errors 592 Catching and Handling Exceptions 594 Global Error Handling and Custom Error Pages 601 The Basics of Debugging 607 Tools Support for Debugging 611 Moving around in Debugged Code 611 Debugging Windows 612 Debugging Client-Side Script 618 Tracing Your ASP.NET Web Pages 621 Using the Standard Tracing Capabilities 622 Adding Your Own Information to the Trace 626 Tracing and Performance 628 A Security Warning 628 Practical Debugging Tips 628 Summary 629 Exercises 630 Chapter 18: Deploying Your Web Site 631 Preparing Your Web Site for Deployment 632 Avoiding Hardcoded Settings 632 Copying Your Web Site 639 Creating a Simple Copy of Your Web Site 639 Publishing Your Web Site 642 Running Your Site under IIS 643 Installing and Configuring the Web Server 643 Understanding Security in IIS 651 NTFS Settings for Planet Wrox 652 Troubleshooting Web Server Errors 656 xx

23 Contents Moving Data to a Remote Server 657 Using the Database Publishing Wizard 658 Recreating the Database 660 The Deployment Checklist 661 What s Next 662 Summary 663 Exercises 664 Appendix A: Exercise Answers 665 Appendix B: Configuring SQL Server Configuring SQL Server Terminology and Concepts 688 Using SQL Server Management Studio 689 Enabling Remote Connections in SQL Server 690 Connecting Your Application to SQL Server Configuring Application Services 701 Configuring Your Database for the Application Services 702 Overriding the LocalSqlServer Connection String 703 Overriding the Settings of the Application Services 704 Index 707 xxi

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25 Introduction To build effective and attractive database-driven web sites, you need two things: a solid and fast framework to run your web pages on and a rich and extensive environment to create and program these web pages. With ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Web Developer 2008 you get both. Together they form the platform to create dynamic and interactive web applications. ASP.NET 3.5 builds on top of its popular predecessor ASP.NET 2.0. While maintaining backward compatibility with sites built using this older version, the Microsoft.NET Framework 3.5 in general and ASP.NET 3.5 in particular add a lot of new, compelling features to the mix. Continuing the path of less code that was entered with the 2.0 version of the.net Framework, ASP.NET 3.5 lets you accomplish more with even less code. New features like LINQ that are added to the.net Frame work allow you to access a database with little to no handwritten code. The integration of Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax into the ASP.NET Framework and Visual Web Developer means you can now create fast-responding and spiffy web interfaces simply by dragging a few controls onto your page and setting a few properties. This book gives you an in-depth look at both of these technologies. The support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the language to lay out and format web pages, has undergone a major overhaul in Visual Web Developer. The design-time support, that shows you how a page will eventually look in the browser, has been vastly improved. Additionally, Visual Web Developer now ships with a lot of tools that make writing CSS a breeze. However, drag-and-drop support and visual tools are not the only things you ll learn from this book. ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Web Developer 2008 come with a great and extensive set of tools to help you program your web applications. These tools range from the new LINQ syntax that allows you to query data and databases in your web applications, to the vastly improved debugging capabilities that allow you to debug your application from client-side JavaScript all the way up into your server-side code, all with the same familiar user interface, commands, and actions. Under the hood, ASP.NET 3.5 makes use of the same run time as version 2.0. This ensures a great backward compatibility with that version, which means that ASP.NET 2.0 applications continue to run under the new framework. But don t be fooled by the fact that the run time hasn t changed. Although the technical underpinnings needed to execute your web application haven t changed, the.net 3.5 Framework and ASP.NET add a lot of new features, as you ll discover in this book. Probably the best thing about Visual Web Developer 2008 is its price: it s available for free. Although the commercial versions of Visual Studio 2008 ship with Visual Web Developer, you can also download and install the free Express Edition. This makes Visual Web Developer 2008 and ASP.NET 3.5 probably the most attractive and compelling web development technologies available today.

26 Introduction Whom This Book Is For This book is for anyone who wants to learn how to build rich and interactive web sites that run on the Microsoft platform. With the knowledge you gain from this book, you create a great foundation to build any type of web site, ranging from simple hobby-related web sites to sites you may be creating for commercial purposes. Anyone new to web programming should be able to follow along because no prior background in web development is assumed. The book starts at the very beginning of web development by showing you how to obtain and install Visual Web Developer. The chapters that follow gradually introduce you to new technologies, building on top of the knowledge gained in the previous chapters. Do you have a strong preference for Visual Basic over C# or the other way around? Or do you think both languages are equally cool? Or maybe you haven t made up your mind yet and want to learn both languages? Either way, you ll like this book because all code examples are presented in both languages! Even if you re already familiar with previous versions of ASP.NET, with the 1.x versions in particular, you may gain a lot from this book. Although many concepts from ASP.NET 2.0 are brought forward into ASP.NET 3.5, you ll discover there s a host of new stuff to be found in this book, including an introduction to LINQ, the new CSS and JavaScript debugging tools, new ASP.NET controls, and integrated support for ASP.NET Ajax. What This Book Covers This book teaches you how to create a feature-rich, data-driven, and interactive web site. Although this is quite a mouthful, you ll find that with Visual Web Developer 2008 this isn t as hard as it seems. You ll see the entire process of building a web site, from installing Visual Web Developer 2008 in Chapter 1 all the way up to putting your web application on a live server in Chapter 18. The book is divided into 18 chapters, each dealing with a specific subject. Chapter 1, Getting Started with ASP.NET 3.5. In this chapter you ll see how to obtain and install Visual Web Developer You ll get instructions for downloading and installing the free edition of Visual Web Developer 2008, called the Express Edition. You are also introduced to HTML, the language behind every web page. The chapter closes with an overview of the customization options that Visual Web Developer gives you. Chapter 2, Building an ASP.NET Web Site. This chapter shows you how to create a new web site and how to add new elements like pages to it. Besides learning how to create a wellstructured site, you also see how to use the numerous tools in Visual Web Developer to create HTML and ASP.NET pages. Chapter 3, Designing Your Web Pages. Visual Web Developer comes with a host of tools that allow you to create well-designed and attractive web pages. In this chapter, you see how to make good use of these tools. Additionally, you learn about CSS, the language that is used to format web pages. Chapter 4, Working with ASP.NET Controls. ASP.NET Server Controls are one of the most important concepts in ASP.NET. They allow you to create complex and feature-rich web sites with very little code. This chapter introduces you to the large number of server controls that are available, explains what they are used for, and shows you how to use them. xxiv

27 Introduction Chapter 5, Programming Your ASP.NET Web Pages. Although the built-in CSS tools and the ASP.NET Server Controls can get you a long way in creating web pages, you are likely to use a programming language to enhance your pages. This chapter serves as an introduction to programming with a strong focus on programming web pages. Best of all: all the examples you see in this chapter (and the rest of the book) are in both Visual Basic and C#, so you can choose the language you like best. Chapter 6, Creating Consistent Looking Web Sites. Consistency is important to give your web site an attractive and professional appeal. ASP.NET helps you create consistent-looking pages through the use of master pages, which allow you to define the global look and feel of a page. Skins and themes help you to centralize the looks of controls and other visual elements in your site. You also see how to create a base page that helps to centralize programming code that you need on all pages in your site. Chapter 7, Navigation. To help your visitors find their way around your site, ASP.NET comes with a number of navigation controls. These controls are used to build the navigation structure of your site. They can be connected to your site s central site map that defines the pages in your web site. You also learn how to programmatically send users from one page to another. Chapter 8, User Controls. User controls are reusable page fragments that can be used in multiple web pages. As such, they are great for repeating content like menus, banners, and so on. In this chapter, you learn how to create and use user controls and enhance them with some programmatic intelligence. Chapter 9, Validating User Input. A large part of interactivity in your site is defined by the input of your users. This chapter shows you how to accept, validate, and process user input using ASP.NET Server Controls. Additionally, you see how to send from your ASP.NET web application and how to read from text files. Chapter 10, ASP.NET Ajax. Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax allows you to create good-looking, flickerfree web pages that close the gap between traditional desktop applications and web applications. In this chapter you learn how to use the built-in Ajax features to enhance the presence of your web pages, resulting in a smoother interaction with the web site. Chapter 11, Introduction to Databases. Understanding how to use databases is critical to building modern web sites, as most modern web sites require the use of a database. You ll learn the basics of SQL, the query language that allows you to access and alter data in a database. In addition, you are introduced to the database tools found in Visual Web Developer that help you create and manage your SQL Server databases. Chapter 12, Displaying and Updating Data. Building on the knowledge you gained in the previous chapter, this chapter shows you how to use the ASP.NET data-bound and data source controls to create a rich interface that enables your users to interact with the data in the database that these controls target. Chapter 13, LINQ. LINQ is Microsoft s new solution for accessing objects, databases, XML, and more. In this chapter you ll see how to use LINQ to SQL to access SQL Server databases. Instead of writing a lot of manual code, you create a bunch of LINQ objects that do the heavy work for you. This chapter shows you what LINQ is all about, how to use the visual LINQ designer built into Visual Web Developer, and how to write LINQ queries to get data in and out of your SQL Server database. Chapter 14, Presenting Data: Advanced Topics. While earlier chapters focused mostly on the technical foundations of working with data, this chapter looks at the same topic from a frontend perspective. You see how to change the visual appearance of your data through the use of xxv

28 Introduction control styles. You also see how to interact with the data-bound controls and how to speed up your application by keeping a local copy of frequently accessed data. Chapter 15, Security in Your ASP.NET 3.5 Web Site. Although presented quite late in the book, security is a first-class, important topic. This chapter shows you how to make use of the built-in ASP.NET features related to security. You learn about a number of application services that facilitate security. You also learn about how to let users sign up for an account on your web site, how to distinguish between anonymous and logged-on users, and how to manage the users in your system. Chapter 16, Personalizing Web Sites. Building on the security features introduced in Chapter 15, this chapter shows you how to create personalized web pages with content targeted at individual users. You see how to configure and use the ASP.NET Profile that enables you to store personalized data for known and anonymous visitors. Chapter 17, Exception Handling, Debugging, and Tracing. In order to understand, improve, and fix the code you write for your ASP.NET web pages you need good debugging tools. Visual Web Developer ships with great debugging support that enables you to diagnose the state of your application at run time, helping you to find and fix problems before your users do. Chapter 18, Deploying Your Web Site. By the end of the book, you should have a web site that is ready to be shown to the world. But how exactly do you do that? What are the things you need to know and understand to put your web site out in the wild? This chapter gives the answers and provides you with a good look at configuring different production systems in order to run your final web site. How This Book Is Structured This book takes the time to explain concepts step-by-step using working examples and detailed explanations. Using the famous Wrox Try It Out and How It Works sections, you are guided through a task step by step, detailing important things as you progress through the task. Each Try It Out task is followed by a detailed How It Works section that explains the steps you performed in the exercise. At the end of each chapter, you find exercises that help you test the knowledge you gained in this chapter. You ll find the answers to each question in Appendix A at the end of this book. Don t worry if you don t know all the answers to the questions. Later chapters do not assume you followed and carried out the tasks from the exercise sections of previous chapters. What You Need to Use This Book This book assumes you have a system that meets the following requirements: Capable of running Visual Web Developer. For the exact system requirements, consult the readme file that comes with the software. Running Windows XP Professional Edition, Windows Vista (at least the Home Premium edition), or one of the server editions of Windows. xxvi

29 Introduction Although you should be able to follow along with most exercises using Windows XP Home or Windows Vista Basic, some of the chapters in this book require the use of IIS, Microsoft s web server, which only ships with the Windows versions in the requirements list. The first chapter shows you how to obtain and install Visual Web Developer 2008, which in turn installs the Microsoft.NET Framework version 3.5 and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition; all you need is a good operating system and the drive to read this book! Conventions To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what s happening, a number of conventions are used throughout the book. Try It Out Conventions The Try It Out is an exercise you should work through, following the text in the book. 1. They usually consist of a set of steps. 2. Each step has a number. 3. Follow the steps through with your copy of the code. 4. Then read the How It Works section to find out what s going on. How It Works After each Try It Out, the actions you carried out and the code you ve typed in will be explained in detail. Boxes like this one hold important, not-to-be forgotten information that is directly relevant to the surrounding text. Tips, hints, tricks, and asides to the current discussion are offset and placed in italics like this. As for styles in the text: New terms and important words are italicized when they are introduced. URLs and code within the text are presented like this: Request.QueryString.Get( Id ) Menu items that require you to click multiple submenus have a special symbol that looks like this:. For example: File New Folder. Code or content irrelevant to the discussion is either left out completely or replaced with three subsequent dots, like this: <tr> <td style= white-space: nowrap; > xxvii

30 Introduction... Menu items go here; not shown </td> </tr> The three dots are used regardless of the programming language used in the example, so you ll see it for C#, Visual Basic, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. When you see it in code you re instructed to type into the code editor, you can simply skip the three dots and anything that follows them on the same line. Code shown for the first time, or other relevant code, is in the following format: Dim albumowner As String albumowner = Imar lblowner.text = albumowner By contrast, less important code, or code that you have seen before, looks like this: albumowner = Imar Text that appears on screen often has Each Word Start With A Capital Letter, even though the original screen text uses a different capitalization. This is done to make the screen text stand out from the rest of the text. Source Code As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code manually or to use the source code files that accompany the book. All of the source code used in this book is available for download at Once at the site, locate the book s title (either by using the Search box or by using one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book s detail page to obtain all the source code for the book. Because many books have similar titles, you may find it easiest to search by ISBN; for this book the ISBN is You can download the full source for this book as a single file that you can decompress with your favorite decompression tool. If you extract the source, make sure you maintain the original folder structure that is part of the code download. The different decompression tools use different names for this feature, but look for a feature like Use Folder Names or Maintain Directory Structure. Once you have extracted the files from the code download, you should end up with a folder called Source and a folder called Resources. Then create a new folder in the root of your C drive, call it BegASPNET, and move the Source and Resources folders into this new folder so you end up with folders like C:\BegASPNET\Source and C:\BegASPNET\Resources. The source folder contains the source for each of the 18 chapters of this book and the final version of the PlanetWrox application that you ll work on throughout this book. The Resources folder contains files you need during some of the exercises in this book. If everything turned out correctly, you should end up with the structure shown in Figure I-1. xxviii