Problem 1 : I am not a web developer, but since people think all developers can do everything, I've been asked to look at a company's internal web site for the purpose of updating it.
Problem 2 : The company does not have the original Visual Studio project for the web site.
Question 1 : Can the files running the web site be used to manually build a working VS project?
Question 2 : Is it better or necessary to rebuild the web site from scratch?
Two are two ways to deploy ASP.NET:
Compile project and deploy aspx pages and dlls (I'm talking about webforms here, not MVC).
Source code (dynamic compilation available starting Framework 2)
In second case you can download all code, create project and add all files there.
If you have only complied version, it's more complex. You can get aspx files, but for code behind you can use for example Reflector or DotPeek.
PS. If you have ASP files, it's classic ASP, you have all source inside ASP (VBScript), so you can get everything and edit in VS or even in notepad.
Related
We have two ASP.Net projects that we maintain with Visual Studio 2019.
The first project was originally built 10+ years ago and has been upgraded from one Visual Studio version to the next over the years. Everything runs fine.
The second project is a brand new project created with Visual Studio 2019. There are several web forms that we would like to import from the first project to the second project.
The Problem: Those web forms from the first project don't have a "aspx.designer.cs" files - each form only consists of an "aspx" and an "aspx.cs" file. And when they're in that first project everything's fine. They compile and they run fine. If we right-click and go the definition of any of the declarative objects in the "aspx.cs" file a window pops up saying it can't navigate to the symbol - which is fine. Everything works.
BUT... When those web forms are imported to the second project, all of the declarative objects show as being undefined - there's no "aspx.designer.cs" file where they'd normally be defined.
Any thoughts? How can we import and actually use these web forms in the newer project? Do we have to go and manually create that "aspx.designer.cs" file for each web form? There's quite a few of them...
Thanks!
Curt
All these effects are expected. An older/legacy site is represented by the "ASP.NET WebSite" template/structure, while the newer one - the "ASP.NET Web Application".
Check out the following threads to find differences and possible hints for migration (in short - move files as is, correct some #Page directives and code namespaces, switch to the ASPX Design View to re-generate the associated Designer file):
ASP.NET Web Site or ASP.NET Web Application?
Web Application Projects versus Web Site Projects in Visual Studio
I've created a blank solution in VS2019. Using the option "add existing web site" I've added a website to the solution which was built in VS2010. Normally, after that, I was used to add a Web Deployment Project to the solution, to compile all the code in one dll, and upload the result to the web server.
But this kind of project does not seem to be compatible anymore with the newer versions of VS.
Is there any way to get a similar compiled result in VS2019?
I found an alternative.
It is to convert the [asp.net web site] to an [asp.net application]. The asp.net application has a publish feature, which can be used to generate an output folder with the compiled application inside, with the aspx pages and a single dll.
I suggest to follow the steps described here to convert the asp.net web site to asp.net application:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/aa983476(v=vs.140)
I've inherited a legacy code base that doesn't currently compile and has no project or solution file (there are multiple repositories including winforms and asp.net).
I'm not certain what .net version the original code was written in, nor what the project template was, although I know some are web forms.
I'm re-creating new solution and project files to import the code into, but need to find some of the default dll's included in old Visual Studio project templates (e.g. webforms).
Any ideas where I might find this information?
Anyone know an MSDN link with this on it?
P.S. I don't have access to the production code, although it is running in production.
I have a solution with multiple class libraries and a website (not a web application) in framework 3.5 VS 2008.
I would like to create a script/batch file to automate the publishing of the website to a given folder location(not to IIS).
I tried googling regarding this but everywhere they are refering to a .csproj file for the website. In my solution I do not have any such file for the website.
I do not want to use any add ons / other tools for automated builds right now.
Please suggest an approach using MSBuild or any other inbuilt asp.net tool.
I am looking to make a change to a web site connected to an SQL server.
as far as I could look at the source files the web page is made in asp with VB (*.aspx, *.aspx.vb, *.ascx, *.ascx.vb - among the file extensions). the issue I am having is that I don't know how was the project created nor which versions were used.
was it a simple web site? or ASP.NET web application? which .netframework version? was it visual studio 2008 or 2010?
the code has no comments anywhere, so it doesn't help me at all.
I tried getting in contact with the previous developer, but he is no longer working in the company. besides the page was created some years ago.
is there a way to recreate the project? anywhere I can look and "guess" which versions I need?
any help is welcome!
Two options.
There is a *.vbproj file among others. This would be a VB.NET VS project file. You can access the project from the VS by opening the project file.
There is no *.vbproj file among others. This would be a VB.NET web site. You can access it by opening it as a "web site" from the VS menu.
The latest version of VS should be able to open any project created with any previous version, in a "worst" case the project would just be converted. I would not be worry about the version of the framework. Plus, if it is a web site, it could be difficult to determine which exact version of VS was used to create it.