Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Server Controls and Components

Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Server Controls and Components

Part I. Overview
 Chapter 1. ASP.NET Overview
 Chapter 2. Page Programming Model
 Chapter 3. Component Programming Overview

Part II. Server Controls— First Steps
 Chapter 4. User Controls: From Page to Control
 Chapter 5. Developing a Simple Custom Control
 Chapter 6. Custom Controls vs. User Controls

Part III. Server Controls—Nuts and Bolts
 Chapter 7. Simple Properties and View State
 Chapter 8. Rendering
 Chapter 9. Control Life Cycle, Events, and Postback
 Chapter 10. Complex Properties and State Management
 Chapter 11. Styles in Controls
 Chapter 12. Composite Controls
 Chapter 13. Client-Side Behavior
 Chapter 14. Validator Controls
 Chapter 15. Design-Time Functionality
 Chapter 16. Data-Bound Controls
 Chapter 17. Localization, Licensing, and Other Miscellany

Part IV. Server Components
 Chapter 18. XML Web Services
 Chapter 19. HTTP Handlers

Part V. Server Control Case Studies
 Chapter 20. Data-Bound Templated Controls
 Chapter 21. DHTML-Based Server Controls

Part VI. Appendixes
 Appendix A. Metadata Attributes
 Appendix B. Object Model for Common Classes
 Appendix C. Microsoft ASP.NET Web Matrix

Structure of the Book

This book is organized into five parts. The chapters in the first three parts build upon each other and are intended to be read sequentially.

Part I, “Overview,” provides an overview of ASP.NET and describes the relationship of ASP.NET to the rest of the .NET Framework. This part also examines the Web Forms programming model and offers an overview of the essential constructs in programming components and controls using the .NET Framework.

Part II, “Server Controls—First Steps,” provides an introduction to the two models that ASP.NET provides for implementing server controls. This section of the book demonstrates declaratively authored user controls and programmatically authored custom controls and provides guidelines for choosing between the two control authoring models.

Part III, “Server Controls—Nuts and Bolts,” examines the architecture of ASP.NET server controls and provides in-depth coverage of the essential control authoring tasks. This part illustrates core ASP.NET concepts, including properties, state management, events, postback data processing, and rendering. It shows how to develop composite and templated controls, controls with client-side behavior, validator controls, and data-bound controls. This portion of the book also demonstrates how to incorporate design-time functionality so that controls provide a rich experience in a visual designer such as Visual Studio .NET. It concludes with a discussion of localization and licensing.

Part IV, “Server Components,” describes XML Web services and HTTP handlers. It provides a quick overview of creating and deploying Web services and an in-depth explanation of building custom HTTP handlers. It also shows how to incorporate these technologies into server controls.

Part V, “Server Control Case Studies,” contains examples of real-world controls that are similar to the standard set of ASP.NET server controls that ship with the .NET Framework. The sample controls in this part of the book bring together the concepts described in earlier chapters and provide an implementation of a set of professional-quality controls.

In addition, this book has three appendices. Appendix A, “Metadata Attributes,” describes the metadata attribute classes that are commonly used by control developers when implementing server controls. Appendix B, “Object Model for Common Classes,” lists the base classes for server controls and other classes that provide functionality that is commonly utilized by server controls. Appendix C, “Microsoft ASP.NET Web Matrix,” introduces the Web development tool provided by the ASP.NET team and describes its relevance to control developers.