Summary

This chapter looked at the core for ASP.NET “ the page. Whether referred to as a Web Form or as an ASP.NET page, the page is the central part of all that is done with ASP.NET. The page is what embodies the interface that the user has to interact with, on a web site or a Web application. The page gives us plenty of power to do things like generate non-text files such as images, or be broken up into smaller segments for reuse called user controls. But with great power comes great responsibility, and also complexity. The nice thing about the Page object and all that it represents is that you can just work with the ice of the tipberg and still function. But when you need to delve deeper, the Page object, and all that it encompasses, has the power that you need.

This chapter discussed:

• The old way of doing ASP pages, and contrasted that with the new ASP.NET style of pages.

• The Page class itself and the object model that it supports.

• The steps that the page goes through in its lifetime.

• How to use Code-Behind to separate code from layout.

• How output caching can be used to increase performance.

• How to create and use user controls.

The next chapter dives deeper into the world of server controls. The ability to embed complex functionality into a control, and then drop that control onto a Web Form page with one tag is one of the revolutionary aspects of ASP.NET.