Chapter 20: Creating Web Sites and Web Pages Using Microsoft Visual Web Developer and ASP.NET

Chapter 20

Creating Web Sites and Web Pages Using Microsoft Visual Web Developer and ASP.NET

After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• Start Visual Web Developer and create a new Web site.

• Use Visual Web Developer tools and windows, including the Web Page Designer.

• Use the Visual Web Developer Toolbox to add server controls to Web pages.

• Add text, formatting effects, and Visual Basic code to a Web page that calculates loan payments for a car loan.

• Create an HTML page that displays Help information.

• Use the HyperLink control to link one Web page to another on a Web site.

• Use the GridView control to display a table of database information on a Web page.

• Set the Document object's Title property and assign a name to a Web page.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to build Web sites and Web pages by using the new Visual Web Developer tool included with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Visual Web Developer has the look and feel of the Visual Studio IDE, but it is customized for Web programming and Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0, the Microsoft .NET Framework component designed to provide state-of-the-art Internet functionality. ASP.NET was introduced with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 and is a replacement for WebClasses and the DHTML Page Designer in Microsoft Visual Basic 6. Although a complete description of Web programming and ASP.NET isn't possible here, there's enough in common between Web programming and Windows programming to allow you to do some useful experimentation—even if you have little or no experience with HTML. Invest a few hours in this chapter, and you'll see how quickly you can build a Web site that calculates loan payments for car loans, create an HTML page with Help information, and display loan prospects from an Access database by using the GridView control.

Upgrade Notes: Migrating Visual Basic 6 Code to Visual Basic 2005

If you're experienced with Visual Basic 6, you'll notice some new features in Visual Studio 2005, including the following:

• A new Internet programming model called ASP.NET, and a new IDE called Visual Web Developer. These technologies are a replacement for the Visual Basic 6 WebClasses and DHTML Page Designer, which were discontinued in Visual Studio .NET 2002.

• Although the Web Page Designer is distinct from the Windows Forms Designer, both IDE tools offer similar controls and support drag-and-drop programming techniques. Because the Web Page Designer is part of Visual Web Developer (a tool accessible to all Visual Studio programming languages), it's available to Microsoft Visual Basic 2005, Microsoft Visual C# 2005, and Microsoft Visual J# 2005.

• Web sites and Web pages are designed to be displayed by Web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer. The controls on Web pages are visible in the client's Web browser (in other words, on the end user's computer), but the functionality for the controls resides on the Web server that hosts the actual Web application.

• Although many of the Web page controls have the same names as the Windows Forms controls, the controls aren't identical. For example, Web page controls have an ID property, rather than a Name property.