FUTURE Weapons

    OF ASP.Net

After hearing the latest technologies which are released in recent time,  I just thought I could have really share My little knowledge on these latest technologies with you guys & whats the advantage to ASP.net with these controls. Among the So many things I just want to share some of the most happening things to ASP.net in recent times, which will really play a wide role in Future of Asp.net.  As a Asp.net developer  I really loved the most exiting thing is   JQuery & its Integration with Visual Studio, ASP.net MVC Architecture,  Silver Light toolkit , ah there So many Things Happen to C# also.. (.. its running faster C#4.0 getting released in VS2010 ).. But I just want to discuss about the ASP.net things.. If time permits I will surely write about that.

With the latest technologies getting added to ASP.net , there  will be so many answers are going to be added to this question..  “Why someone Need to choose ASP.Net for there Environment?” (In Clients & developers Aspects ) among the below list. Consistent Programming Model, Direct Support for Security , Simplified Development Efforts

,Easy Application Deployment and Maintenance  .

Let me go through each one of them briefly. 

JQuery & its Integration with Visual Studio

JQuery the most using Javascript Library now a days in Web development is integrated with VisualStudio & It is going to be used in AJAX also.  That was really a Great news to the ASP.net Developers from development Prospect.. & From UI prospect that will very good news to the Clients who are approaching the ASP.net. I am sure this combination can Make the UI design reach New Heights. Let me share some of the interesting things with JQuery.

JQuery:

Jquery is a lightweight open source JavaScript library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development.

Features:

·   CROSS Browser Compatibility

·   Supports Changing CascadeStyleSheet’s & XPath

·   Lightweight

WHY JQuery??

jQuery is that it allows you to elegantly (and efficiently) find and manipulate HTML elements with minimum lines of code.  jQuery supports this via a nice "selector" API that allows developers to query for HTML elements, and then apply "commands" to them.  One of the characteristics of jQuery commands is that they can be "chained" together - so that the result of one command can feed into another.  jQuery also includes a built-in set of animation APIs that can be used as commands.  The combination allows you to do some really cool things with only a few keystrokes.

·   Chainability (The Magic of jQuery)

jQuery uses an interesting concept to make its code short and simple. For those familiar with object-oriented programming, this concept should be rather straightforward.

In a nutshell: Every method within jQuery returns the query object itself, allowing you to 'chain' upon it, for example:

 $("a").addClass("test").show().html("foo");

Each of those individual methods (addClass, show, and html) return the jQuery object, allowing you to continue applying methods to the current set of elements

Unlike Javascript which is not CrossBrowser compatible , Jquery is a CrossBrowser

compatible.

What is jQuery UI?

jQuery UI provides abstractions for low-level interaction and high-level, themeable widgets, built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library, that you can use to build highly interactive web applications.

·   Features low-level effect and interaction API's as well as

   full-featured themable and ready  to use widgets.

·   jQuery UI makes internal use of all the power of jQuery

  and adapts and extends its API,  making it easy for jQuery

  users to start right away.

·   Supports IE 6.0+, FF 2+, Safari 3.1+, Opera 9.0

jQuery can bring tremendous productivity gains and it's easy to learn and work with. It's one of those tools that has drastically changed of how I think about client side development and frankly it has helped me improve my skill set significantly. It's also made me much more productive and more confident in being able to tackle complex UI and front end logic in JavaScript reliably

Key features of jQuery

·   DOM Element Selectors
jQuery Selectors allow you to select DOM elements so that you can apply functionality to them with jQuery’s operational methods. jQuery uses a CSS 3.0 syntax (plus some extensions) to select single or multiple elements in a document. Using CSS means that you use selector syntax you’re probably already familiar with from HTML styling and even if not it’s fairly easy to pick up the key CSS selector features.

·  The jQuery Object: The Wrapped Set
Selectors result in a jQuery object that is known as the Wrapped Set, which is an array like structure that contains each of the selected DOM elements. You can iterate over the wrapped set like an array or access individual elements via the indexer ( $(sel)[0] for example). More importantly though you can also apply jQuery functions against all the selected elements.

        ·  Simplified Event Handling
Much of what is done in JavaScript code from DOM manipulation to AJAX calls are handled asynchronously and unfortunately the DOM implementations for event handling vary considerably between browsers. jQuery provides an easy mechanism for binding and unbinding events and providing a normalized event model for all supported browsers that makes it very easy to handle events and hook result handlers. All events are called in the context of the element that caused the event and they receive a fixed up and browser normalized event object that is consistent.  

        ·  Small Footprint
jQuery is a fairly compact base library yet it’s feature packed with stuff  you'll actually use. 

        ·  Easy Plug-in Extensibility
jQuery is a language and DOM extension library and it provides a core set of useful features. It's small and tightly focused on providing core functionality and no more. For everything else jQuery provides a very easy plug-in API that has spawned hundreds of plug-ins for almost every conceivable common operation you might think up to perform on a set of DOM elements.

·   Its light weight when compared to other javascript frameworks

·   It has a wide range of plugins available for various specific needs

·   It is easier for a designer to learn javascript as it uses familiar CSS syntax.

·   Large development community and many plugins.

·   Very good documentation for a 3rd party library.

·   Chaining capabilities are very powerful.

ASP.NET MVC

The ASP.NET MVC framework is a lightweight, highly testable presentation framework that (as with Web Forms-based applications) is integrated with existing ASP.NET features, such as master pages and membership-based authentication.

MVC is a standard design pattern that many developers are familiar with

The MVC framework includes the following components:

Models. Model objects are the parts of the application that implement the logic for the application's data domain. Often, model objects retrieve and store model state in a database. For example, a Product object might retrieve information from a database, operate on it, and then write updated information back to a Products table in SQL Server.

In small applications, the model is often a conceptual separation instead of a physical one. For example, if the application only reads a data set and sends it to the view, the application does not have a physical model layer and associated classes. In that case, the data set takes on the role of a model object.

Views. Views are the components that display the application's user interface (UI). Typically, this UI is created from the model data. An example would be an edit view of a Products table that displays text boxes, drop-down lists, and check boxes based on the current state of a Products object.

Controllers. Controllers are the components that handle user interaction, work with the model, and ultimately select a view to render that displays UI. In an MVC application, the view only displays information; the controller handles and responds to user input and interaction. For example, the controller handles query-string values, and passes these values to the model, which in turn queries the database by using the values.

Deciding When to Create an MVC Application??

You must consider carefully whether to implement a Web application by using either the ASP.NET MVC framework or the ASP.NET Web Forms model. The MVC framework does not replace the Web Forms model; you can use either framework for Web applications. (If you have existing Web Forms-based applications, these continue to work exactly as they always have.)
Before you decide to use the MVC framework or the Web Forms model for a specific Web site, weigh the advantages of each approach.

Advantages of an MVC-Based Web Application

The ASP.NET MVC framework offers the following advantages:

·   It makes it easier to manage complexity by dividing an application into the

   model, the view, and the controller.

·   It does not use view state or server-based forms. This makes the

   MVC framework  ideal for developers who want full control over

   the behavior of an application.

·   It uses a Front Controller pattern that processes Web application requests

   through a single controller. This enables you to design an application that

   supports a rich routing infrastructure.

·   It provides better support for test-driven development (TDD).

·   It works well for Web applications that are supported by large teams

   of developers and Web designers who need a high degree of control

   over the application behavior. 

Silver light Toolkit

In the latest PDC this SilverLight toolkit is announced to release & as we all know recently the SilverLight 2.0 is Released. Which I described in my previous blog SilverLight 2.0  

The Silverlight Toolkit is a collection of Silverlight controls, components and utilities made available outside the normal Silverlight release cycle. It adds new functionality quickly for designers and developers, and provides the community an efficient way to help shape product development by contributing ideas and bug reports. This first release includes full source code, unit tests, samples and documentation for 12 new controls covering charting, styling, layout, and user input. 

Advanced Tools @ CAT Technologies Ltd :

Proud to Say, Our developers are Quick learners & enthusiastic enough in learning new technologies. We already started working on JQuery By Replacing Javascript in applications & we are happy to hear that the add-ins & intellisense also included in visual studio.  Which is Light Weight & Cross browser compatible. It is a good answer for some challenges we faced previously in CAT for Achieving Browser compatibility for all the applications. Now JQuery Helped us in achieving this.

Its pretty clear in future SilverLight will be playing a very good role in Webdevelopment. As we already worked on Silver1.0 & now we are working on silverlight2.0 , silver light tools released recent times. Which we already started implementing in some internal projects & successfully completed.  

We at CAT Technologies are ahead in using all these advanced tools of ASP.Net & as these tools are keeping ASP.Net ahead compare to all the web technology languages. So we always give our best presentation layers & feasible solutions to our clients based on the latest technologies.

Posted by: Kiran Methuku