The .NET Framework version 3.5 Service Pack 1 includes enhancements for ASP.NET in targeted areas. Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express Edition also include enhancements and new features for improved Web development.
The most significant advances are improved support for developing AJAX-enabled Web sites and support for Language-Integrated Query (LINQ). The advances include new server controls and types, a new object-oriented client type library, and full IntelliSense support in Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express Edition for working with ECMAScript (JavaScript or JScript).
The following sections of this topic describe the changes in ASP.NET and Visual Web Developer.
ASP.NET Enhancements in SP1
ASP.NET Enhancements in version 3.5
Visual Web Developer Enhancement
ASP.NET Enhancements in SP1
The following sections provide information about enhancements and new features in Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer Express Edition.
Dynamic Data
ASP.NET Dynamic Data is a framework that lets you create data-driven ASP.NET Web applications easily. It does this by automatically discovering the data model at run time and determining UI behavior from it. A scaffolding framework instantly provides a functional Web site for viewing and editing data. This scaffolding can then be easily customized using metadata, templates, or by creating standard ASP.NET pages to override the default behavior. At the same time existing applications can easily integrate pieces of the scaffolding logic with their existing pages.
URL Routing
URL routing in ASP.NET enables you to use URLs that do not have to map to specific files in a Web site. Because the URL does not have to map to a file, you can use URLs in a Web application that are descriptive of the user's action and therefore more easily understood by users. In URL routing, you define URL patterns that contain placeholders for values that are used when you handle URL requests. At run time, the pieces of the URL that follow the application name are parsed into discrete values, based on a URL pattern that you have defined.
EntityDataSource Control
The EntityDataSource control supports data binding scenarios based on the Entity Data Model (EDM). The EDM specification represents data as sets of entities and relationships. The EDM is used by the Entity Framework in object-relational mapping and in other scenarios such as ADO.NET Data Services. Users accustomed to the design-time model of ASP.NET data binding controls will find the programming surface of the EntityDataSource control similar to that of other data source controls.
The EntityDataSource control manages create, read, update, and delete operations with a data source on behalf of data-bound controls on the page. The EntityDataSource works with editable grids, forms with user-controlled sorting and filtering, dually bound drop-down list controls, and master-detail pages. The EntityDataSource control is able to obtain query parameter values from page controls, query parameters appended to the page URI, cookies, and other ASP.NET parameter objects.
New ASP.NET AJAX Extensions
The new extensions for ASP.NET AJAX in SP1 give you more control over browser history when you use the Back button. They also enable multiple client scripts to be automatically combined into one composite script. This speeds script load time by greatly reducing the required number of round trips to the server.
JScript Formatting
Code formatting capabilities has been extended to support JScript in Visual Studio and Visual Web Developer Express Edition. You can choose to format code manually for a document or Selection, or to be automatically formatted as you type.
Visual Web Developer Enhancements
The following sections provide information about enhancements and new features in Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer Express Edition.
New Design View and CSS Design Tools
The Web page designer now lets you work in Design view, Source view, or Split view, which displays Design view and Source view at the same time.
Visual Studio now provides tools that make it easy to work with cascading style sheets (CSS). You can design the layout and style content in Design view by using new UI tools such as the CSS Properties window. You can also change positioning, padding, and margins directly in Design view by using WYSIWYG visual-layout tools.
For more information, see the following topics:
Working with CSS Overview
Walkthrough: Creating and Modifying a CSS File
IntelliSense for JScript and ASP.NET AJAX
Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer Express Edition now offer significantly improved IntelliSense for coding in ECMAScript (JScript or JavaScript), and for writing client script for AJAX-style Web applications that use the Microsoft AJAX Library. IntelliSense is available for client script in script elements and for referenced .js script files.
Additionally, IntelliSense displays XML code comments. XML code comments are used to describe the summary, parameter, and return details of your client script. ASP.NET AJAX also uses XML code comments to provide IntelliSense for ASP.NET AJAX types and members. IntelliSense is also supported for external script file references that use XML code comments.
For more information, see the following topics:
JScript IntelliSense Overview
Walkthrough: JScript IntelliSense
Web Application Projects
Web applications projects, released earlier as an add-on for Visual Studio 2005, are now integrated into Visual Studio and By using the Web application project model, you can compile a Web site into a single assembly in the Bin folder and explicitly define project resources.
The Web application project model uses the same project, build, and compilation semantics as Web projects in Visual Studio .NET 2003. This enables you to easily migrate Visual Studio .NET 2003 Web sites to the current version of Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer Express Edition.
Web application projects do not replace the Web site project type introduced in Visual Studio 2005. Instead, they provide another project model to provide more options for how you deploy and maintain Web applications.
For more information, see the following topics:
Web Application Projects Overview
How to: Create New Web Application Projects
Multi-targeting Web Applications
Visual Studio now enables you to target a Web application to a specific version of the .NET Framework. You can use one instance of the Visual Studio to develop Web applications for .NET Framework versions 2.0, 3.0 (Windows Vista), and 3.5. In Visual Web Developer Express Edition, you can only create applications that target the 3.5 version of the .NET Framework. However, you can later change the .NET Framework to target versions 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 by changing the related project property.
For more information, see the following topics:
.NET Framework Multi-Targeting Overview
How to: Target a Specific .NET Framework
Designer and IntelliSense Support for LINQ
A new set of features in Visual Studio 2008 support Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) and extend the powerful query capabilities into the language syntax of C# and Visual Basic. LINQ introduces standard, easily-learned patterns for querying and transforming data, and can be extended to support any kind of data source. The designer provides a visual representation of data classes that enables you to quickly create and edit classes that map to objects in a database. IntelliSense support provides information for LINQ language syntax and for using the
LinqDataSource control in Source view. For more information, see LinqDataSource Web Server Control Overview
Support for Creating and Consuming WCF Services in a Web Project
In Visual Studio, you can add ASP.NET Web services (.asmx files) and WCF Web services (.svc files) to a project. Client applications that are written in managed code typically access these Web services through a proxy class. For example, these applications use the proxy class that Visual Studio generates when you use the Add Web Reference dialog box. AJAX applications can access Web services from the browser by using proxy classes that are automatically generated in client script. For more information, see
ASP.NET Application Services Overview.
Support for ASP.NET AJAX Extender Controls
AJAX extender controls enhance the client capabilities of standard Web server controls in ASP.NET Web applications. You can provide a richer Web-based user experience by binding one or more extenders to Web server controls such as TextBox controls, Button controls, and Panel controls.
Visual Studio supports all ASP.NET AJAX extender controls. This includes extender controls that you create and those that you add from sources such as the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, which is available on the ASP.NET Web site.
The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit is a community-supported library, and is not supported by Microsoft.
For more information, see the following topics:
ASP.NET AJAX Extender Controls Overview
Walkthrough: ASP.NET AJAX Extender Controls