.NET news » ASP.NET

In my previous column, I discussed a few approaches to the problem of applying limited, sometimes temporary, changes to an ASP.NET Web site without touching the original source code. This month, I explore more techniques that can be used to replace server controls and URLs in a declarative manner without the source code..

RadioButtonList and ListBox subclasses that display Enum values automatically

In the past year, new technologies from Microsoft have changed how we can add ink to Web sites and the change is definitely for the better! One small property added to ASP.NET 2.0 server controls, OnClientClick, has had a big impact on simplifying the process of moving ink from the Web page to the Web server. The capability that OnClientClick provides, allowing developers to tie both a client-side event and a server-side event to one Click event, was actually achievable prior to ASP.NET 2.0 using control attributes, but it was more complex to set up and not very discoverable..

The Health Monitoring system in ASP.NET 2.0 is designed to monitor the health of a running ASP.NET application in a production environment. It works by recording event information to a specified log source. The .NET 2.0 Framework includes a variety of built-in events that can be used by the Health Monitoring system, including events for monitoring application re-starts and stops, unhandled exceptions, and failed authentication attempts, among others. The .NET Framework also include support for logging these events to the Windows event log, to a Microsoft SQL Server database, via WMI, in an email, and to the ASP.NET page tracing system.

In this article we will continue our exploration of the built-in events and log sources. In particular, we will look at the WebFailureAuditEvent event, which is raised when there is a security audit failure. We will also look at the SimpleMailWebEventProvider event provider, which, as its name implies, sends event information via email.

I've been an advocate of web standards for some time now and I'm frequently surprised to find new ways to simplify seemingly unrelated tasks. This article discusses how web standards can be used in ASP.NET control development to simplify some development tasks, build lighter weight and accessible controls and increase layout flexibility.

Hacking ASP.NET to build a Repeater with generics support

ASP.NET version 1.x did not include any built-in logging and notification system and therefore required a little bit of code or configuration effort from the developer. ASP.NET 2.0, however, provides built-in Health Monitoring facilities that make it a snap to configure a website to record events to the event log, a database, via WMI, in an email, or to the ASP.NET page tracing system. Moreover, the Health Monitoring system was created using the provider design pattern, making it possible to implement our own logging logic.

This is the start of a series that explores the ASP.NET 2.0 Health Monitoring system. In this article we will examine the basics of Health Monitoring and see how to setup Health Monitoring to log events to a SQL Server database..

When ASP was first released, Web programming was more difficult because you needed IIS to serve your ASP pages. Later, ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 made everything easier by introducing the Web site model of development. Instead of creating a new project inside Visual Studio, the Web site model lets you point to a directory and start writing pages and code. Furthermore, you can quickly test your site with the built-in ASP.NET Development Server, which hosts ASP.NET in a local process and obviates the need to install IIS to begin developing. The beauty of the Web site model is that you can develop your Web application without thinking about packaging and deployment. Need another class? Add a .cs file to the App_Code directory and start writing. Want to store localizable strings in a resource file? Add a .resx file to the App_GlobalResources directory and type in the strings. Everything just works; you don't have to think about the compilation and deployment aspect at all..

There are a number of techniques that allow you to modify an ASP.NET page without touching its source code. You don't need a button's source code to create a derived class, and you don't need an ASP.NET page's source code to modify its behavior. In Windows programming, you typically hook up low level messages and subclass a window. In ASP.NET, you can try to hook up page events to override both the page behavior and output..

Besides complying with the W3C standards for XHTML, cascading style sheets (CSS), XML, and so forth, Web applications should be search-engine friendly, accessible, have human-readable URLs, and employ other accepted practices that make them easier to find and use. Web standards also require careful attention to the structure of the code behind the sites, making it easier to maintain in the future. In this article I'll explain why everyone, especially those writing server controls, should adhere to Web standards.