This question is coming from a Front-End developer new to .NET.
I'm working on a web app that was built a while ago using Webforms. I was asked to integrate two new features to this application. The features would be accessible via two new tabs added to the navigation bar.
What I want to happen is, when the user clicks on the new tab, the application loads up the MVC project as a view inside of the Web Forms app. Here's a link to a picture to explain it better:
The way the project was originally setup is we have the original Webforms project, and we created an MVC project which are siblings inside the same parent folder. The backend devs think this will work fine for them. I have no idea how to get the two projects to load up simultaneously. There hasn't been much work done on either side yet so we're open to ideas of how to restructure this.
I should also add that for the new features the Back-end is just serving up JSON, and I will use AngularJS on the Front-End as opposed to Razor.
Other potentially relevant project info:
Using Visual Studio 2012 (I think we have access to 2013 however)
.NET MVC 4
Webforms (2.0 or 3.5 possibly)
Related
Why can't we create WebAPI project directly just like "WCF Service Application" template in VS.I want to create separate solution not using MVC or ASP.Net WebForms template. In our project we intend to have service layer on different physical machine hosted by IIS to be consumed by different web applications.
The ASP.NET team is in the process of making their offering more cohesive, an effort they call "One ASP.NET." Under One ASP.NET, MVC, Web Forms, Web API, SignalR, and Entity Framework are all first class citizens. They want to make it easy to create web applications that utilize these technologies without having to give up the others; that is, you can make an MVC project but still use Web Forms; or a Web Forms project can easily add a Web API Project.
Anyway, back to your question: you can't create a Web API project directly (i.e. it's not in the main project template list) anymore because it has been rolled into the the single ASP.NET project type.
They explain,
Starting with Visual Studio 2013, the guessing game about which
project type to choose is over. There is now only one web project type
in Visual Studio.
As you can see from the list of templates, we can choose to start with
a standard Web Forms, MVC, or Web API project type. The other project
types from the old MVC template dialog are still here. The interesting
part is the checkboxes underneath the list of templates. Here, we can
choose to add Web Forms references and folders to an MVC project, or
MVC references and folders to a Web Forms project. This is the gateway
to using more of these features in concert with each other in your
project.
Read the full MSDN blog article about One ASP.NET and the new project types here
You can, however, still create a project (or solution) that contains just the Web API references. Just use the ASP.NET project dialog to choose the Web API project type, and make sure all the other check boxes are unchecked. You'll be able to make your project just for Web API, and then go host it on a dedicated box for your services layer. It's all still there, the UI just looks a little different.
When creating a new web project in ASP.NET are you better off to use the "ASP.NET empty web application" or the "asp.net web forms application"
I would recommend against even bothering with ASP.Net Web Forms. It was an interesting idea that proved to be unweildy in practical applications. The entire web development industry is moving towards some kind of MVC framework or another whether you're using PHP, Ruby or ASP.Net so you're best off using that.
Of course there are still a lot of ASP.Net Web Forms applications out there and they're likely to exist for some time into the future so there is some benefit to learning the technology but I would avoid it for any new projects.
As per your question if you should use the empty project or not it doesn't really make a difference. If you're just starting out the populated project can give you a basic idea of how the structure works but if you're comfortable enough building it from scratch then go with the empty project.
It depends on what you want to do.
Generally speaking, there are three kinds of ASP.NET application project:
Web Forms - what ASP.NET was originally back in 2001. Its use is discouraged in modern and greenfield applications because it is built-around outdated ideas about how web applications should work.
MVC - The new hotness. Try to use this. StackOverflow is built using this.
Everything else - too many to list, but this generally requires you create an empty project and do everything from scratch using IHttpHandler.
If you're new to ASP.NET I strongly recommend avoiding the two project types you listed as they're both for Web Forms; consider using the "ASP.NET MVC Application" options instead - if you're using VS2008 then you need to download and install the ASP.NET MVC 2 add-on. VS2010 and later come with the MVC templates preinstalled.
You might want to use the Empty Web Application project template if you want to work from scratch using IHttpHandler, but you sound new to this, so I recommend avoiding it.
As of the start of this week I've been required to start learning how to develop websites in ASP. I have a moderate level of experience with C# through XNA, so that part of it isn't much trouble for me.
I've been following a Music Store Tutorial which takes me though setting up an "ASP.NET MVC 3" application.
I'm about done with the tutorial and have a functioning site when I run a test locally, but I don't understand what files need to be uploaded. I've worked on front-end updates for ASP websites before but they were completely different to this in terms of what files made up the site and so on.
I don't see a single .aspx page in my project which is what I assumed an ASP site was made of from experience. I'm starting to think that those projects weren't MVC projects but maybe just the "ASP.NET Web Application" style project.
Are ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC different? From what I vaguely understand, MVC is just a framework that wraps ASP.NET? Also, is ASP something or is that just a synonym for ASP.NET? Finally back to my initial confusion, what files are to be uploaded onto the server when I want to launch an ASP.NET MVC project?
Do I just upload this entire directory and the server will handle it in the same way that the inbuilt testing ASP server does? Or is the site compiled down into a couple of files somehow and I just upload one of these directories (I think I read that somewhere).
ASP is an acronym for Active Server Pages. Pre .NET, ASP was Microsoft's first iteration scripted web pages. All of those pages typically ended with the extension .ASP.
When .NET was released, ASP was overhauled significantly and renamed ASP.NET. The new version of ASP.NET attempted to model web development similar to windows application development, where you used controls and an event handling model. That was Microsoft's primary model for web page development for many years, and it still around and supported, but today it is referred to as ASP.NET Web Forms. ASP.NET Web Forms pages typically have the .ASPX extension you mentioned.
In the mid-2000s or so, Ruby on Rails took off, using an MVC based model for developing web applications. A few years later, Microsoft released an alternate version of ASP.NET, called ASP.NET MVC, which used similar concepts. Many people feel the MVC approach is a more natural method for developing web pages than the web forms model (note epic Q/A threads on this very site a few years ago). In any case, ASP.NET MVC shares parts with ASP.NET Web Forms, but looks and works pretty differently; for one thing, there are no .ASPX pages as MVC, for the most part, uses a different form of routing to determine what to display.
That's a very brief history that glosses over a whole lot of subjects. What you've posted a screenshot of, is an ASP.NET MVC project.
As far as publishing is concerned, the typical route for publishing an ASP.NET website is to open the project in Visual Studio, select Build|Publish, and tell VS where to put it. Depending on what method you use, you may have to do additional configuration in IIS on the box where you published the site.
First off, when you say ASP, you're referring to old (obsolete) tech. ASP.NET is specifically what you're referring to in your question.
ASP.NET is a Microsoft technology which works cooperatively with the IIS server to provide a "Windows Application" type experience with web sites. Your web site logic is compiled in to a .NET DLL "Class Library." When a web request hits IIS with a URL matching your application directory, IIS starts up your application internally and maintains it.
I don't understand what files need to be uploaded
Visual Studio actually has a built in publisher available for your use. See the Build -> Publish menu in VS / Web Developer.
I don't see a single .aspx page in my project which is what I assumed an ASP site was made of from experience.
ASP.NET Web Forms uses the aspx extension for Pages, their frontend rendering component. On the other hand, ASP.NET MVC uses the concept of Views, which are not relient on a specific component. See the next paragraph.
Are ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC different?
Yes. No. Maybe. ASP.NET contains all the "magic" which allows IIS - the web server - run the web application and serve up web pages. Volumes could (and have) been written on this. ASP.NET also supports much configuration through the means of Http Modules and Providers. These components are declared and configured through the web apps web.config file and are typically automagically created and persisted by IIS and ASP.NET. They collectively make up the glue that makes ASP.NET just work out of the box.
MVC was built on top of the existing foundation classes of ASP.NET. Some features have been loaned, a few have been replaced and more than a handful have been created in order to support the model-view-controller pattern.
For example, MVC gives us support for View Engines - a runtime library which allows us to write our Views (web pages) in a particular format. The ASPX View Engine existed during MVC's launch. Later came Razor, employing the .cshtml extension. Users of the MVC Framework have implemented a wide variety of their own view engines as well. This is possible due to the modular nature of ASP.NET and MVC.
Do I just upload this entire directory and the server will handle it in the same way that the inbuilt testing ASP server does? Or is the site compiled down into a couple of files somehow and I just upload one of these directories (I think I read that somewhere).
I would recommend using the Build -> Publish menu in Visual Studio. You may use web deploy if your host supports it, but FTP and File System methods are available as well.
The bin folder contains the class libraries required to run your web application on the server. The web.config file provides the configuration to do so. However your Views are not compiled in to the assembly. They are published as-is and are rendered lazily by the view engine.
You are probably familiar with ASP.NET WebForms, this is an MVC project. You can find more here:
ASP.NET MVC
In order to upload the site, you need to publish the website from inside Visual Studio to a local file location and then upload everything to the website.
If the target server doesn't have MVC installed, you can right click on the website project in Visual Studio and select "Add Deployable Dependencies".
This will ensure that the server has all the required files to run an MVC project.
I have an existing solution in VS2010. When I click the properties of my project I get the view as can be seen in image1.png:
When I create a new empty ASP.NET web application and click the properties of my project I get the view as can be seen in image2.png:
A huge difference.
Now I'm implementing this code here: http://wcf.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Getting%20started:%20Building%20a%20simple%20web%20api
And that tutorial assumes I get a view as I've shown you in image2.png
In image1 and image2 I've also marked the menu items: "Website" and "Project"
This makes me assume that I've created a website application whereas I need something different (I'm thinking a web application project).
Not sure what to do now, I need to convert my current application to another thing, but to which type and how to do it?
I also came accoss this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdevtools/archive/2009/10/29/converting-a-web-site-project-to-a-web-application-project.aspx
But before I start screwing up everything :P Is that what would solve my problem?
It should be possible to use either a web site or a web application project. In the example on the link you've posted, they use the predefined template for ASP.Net MVC Web Applications. This has several advantages - it sets up the structure and other resources for you - it's effectively a template.
For the purposes of the tutorial, why don't you just set up an application that way? If you've already written some code, you can just import it into the new application.
For future projects, you might want to consider which is best for your needs. Apart from structure, there are some other key differences between a web application and a web site project.
MSDN handily provides the differences here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd547590.aspx
If you find you want the features of the web application, then the link you've posted is fine. You'll need to do some re-organizing of your references and so on and so forth, but the process is fairly straightforward (but not painless).
A "web site" in visual studio is the old, .net 1 style of creating web sites. It basically dynamically compiles the code in a folder when it's hit for the first time. Later .NET introduced a "web application" model where the code is compiled into a DLL and no code files are deployed with the site. "Web sites" are pretty much depcrated and shouldn't be used for any new projects unless you're doing a quick demo site.
The codeplex project you referenced also depends on MVC 3 (which are web applications).
You are probably better off just restarting like the tutorial says - create a new MVC application like it shows in its first screenshot.
If you do not have that option, use Web Platform Installer to add MVC for you - http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx
Good luck!
I can't tell exactly what's going on from your screenshots, but if you have a web site that you need to convert to a web application project, you can find the directions here
Although the instructions are specific to VS2005, they are basically the same for 2010 as well.
I have been tasked with a project where I am to add a new application and have it within an older application (web applications). This is an internal application and management decided that they want it wrapped in this older app. The older application is a ASP.net web app using the 3.5 framework.
My original plan was to use jQuery and Web Services (using JSON and AJAX). My team-mate on the project really wants to use Entity Framework (4.0). As we may be sharing the same look and feel the data is a different database altogether.
After several attempts yesterday, we found some issues. We created a project inside the original solution that targets the 4.0 framework. I created a WebService on the project, but when I tried to call the webservice from the 3.5 project I didn't get an error but I didn't get the return string. I was watching on Firebug and did not see the GET call either.
My team-mate did a little more research and found out about the cross-domain issue and jQuery, so it seems that we are limited with the Entity Framework (3.5) and remaining on the .net Framework (3.5). We did try changing the dataType to jsonp but calling the WebService still didn't work.
However, I was wondering, really management wants the project wrapped inside this other project for consistency sake (navigation, design and so forth). Is there a way to have the 3.5 project display our code that is being generated from the 4.0 project (a totally different solution and probably a different server)? I'm thinking the way the iFrame used to work but I don't want to use an iFrame at all.
One way to solve this problem would be to stand up a WCF webservice to handle the database calls. You could develop your "data layer" with .NET 4 and EF4, then call that layer from your .NET 3.5 ASP.NET application. It's not the absolute cleanest solution, but it would allow you to get the benefits of the newer version of EF.