ASP.NET is a server side scripting technology that enables scripts (embedded in web pages) to be executed by an Internet server.

1. ASP.NET is a Microsoft Technology
2. ASP stands for Active Server Pages
3. ASP.NET is a program that runs inside IIS
4. IIS (Internet Information Services) is Microsoft’s Internet server
5. IIS comes as a free component with Windows servers
6. IIS is also a part of Windows 2000 and XP Professional

ASP.NET is the next generation ASP, but it’s not an upgraded version of ASP. ASP.NET is an entirely new technology for server-side scripting. It was written from the ground up and is not backward compatible with classic ASP. ASP.NET is the major part of the Microsoft’s .NET Framework.

How Does ASP.NET Work?

1. When a browser requests an HTML file, the server returns the file
2. When a browser requests an ASP.NET file, IIS passes the request to the ASP.NET engine on the server
3. The ASP.NET engine reads the file, line by line, and executes the scripts in the file
4. Finally, the ASP.NET file is returned to the browser as plain HTML

Features in ASP.NET:

1. Master Pages, Themes, and Web Parts
2. Standard controls for navigation
3. Standard controls for security
4. Roles, personalization, and internationalization services
5. Improved and simplified data access controls
6. Full support for XML standards like, XHTML, XML, and WSDL
7. Improved compilation and deployment (installation)
8. Improved site management
9. New and improved development tools

The features are described below

Master Pages: A master page is a template for other pages, with shared layout and functionality. The master page defines placeholders for content pages. The result page is a combination (merge) of the master page and the content page.

Themes: Themes is another feature of ASP.NET 2.0. Themes, or skins, allow developers to create a customized look for web applications.

Design goals for themes:

1. Make it simple to customize the appearance of a site
2. Allow themes to be applied to controls, pages, and entire sites
3. Allow all visual elements to be customized

Web Parts: Web Parts can provide a consistent look for a site, while still allowing user customization of styleand content.

New controls:

1. Zone controls – areas on a page where the content is consistent
2. Web part controls – content areas for each zone

Navigation: ASP.NET 2.0 has built-in navigation controls like

1. Site Maps
2. Dynamic HTML menus
3. Tree Views

Security: Security is very important for protecting confidential and personal information.

In ASP.NET 2.0 the following controls has been added:

1. A Login control, which provides login functionality
2. A Login Status control, to control the login status
3. A Login Name control to display the current user name
4. A Login View control, to provide different views depending on login status
5. A Create User wizard, to allow creation of user accounts
6. A Password Recovery control, to provide the “I forgot my password

Roles and Personalization: Internet communities are growing very popular.ASP.NET 2.0 has personalization features for storing user details. This provides an easy way to customize user (and user group) properties.

Internationalization: Reaching people with different languages is important if you want to reach a larger audience. ASP.NET 2.0 has improved support for multiple languages.

Data Access: Many web sites are data driven, using databases or XML files as data sources. With ASP.NET this involved code, and often the same code had to be used over and over in different web pages. A key goal of ASP.NET 2.0 was to ease the use of data sources. ASP.NET 2.0 has new data controls, removing much of the need for programming and in-depth knowledge of data connections.

Automatic Compilation: ASP.NET 2.0 provides automatic compilation. All files within a directory will be compiled on the first run, including support for WSDL, and XSD files.

Compiled Deployment (Installation) and Source Protection: ASP.NET 2.0 also provides pre-compilation. An entire web site can be pre-compiled. This provides an easy way to deploy (upload to a server) compiled applications, and because only compiled files are deployed, the source code is protected.

Site Management: ASP.NET 2.0 has three new features for web site configuration and management:

1. New local management console
2. New programmable management functions (API)
3. New web-based management tool