Essential ASP.NET 2.0 covers all a student needs to know to build robust, well-designed Web applications with ASP.NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, and version 2.0 of the .NET Framework. ASP.NET MVP Fritz Onion and Developer Security MVP Keith Brown draw on their unparalleled experience working with ASP.NET 2.0 and teaching it to professional developers. From data binding to security, UIs to performance, they demystify ASP.NET 2.0's most difficult areas, and introduce little-known techniques for leveraging it to the fullest.

List of Figures xvList of Tables xixForeword xxiPreface xxiiiAcknowledgments xxixAbout the Authors xxxiChapter 1 Architecture 1 Fundamentals 2 Dynamic Content 2 Server-Side Controls 5 Data Binding 8 Codebehind 9 Codebehind Basics 9 Codebehind 2.0 11 Page Lifecycle 15 Common Events 15 New Events 17 Implicit Event Subscription 18 Compilation 20 Compilation Directories 20 Site Compilation 24 Assembly Generation 26 Customizing Assembly Generation 28 Web Application Projects 28 Summary 30 Chapter 2 User Interface Elements 33 Page Templates 33 Master Pages 35 Implementation Details 37 Working with Master Pages 41 Details of Usage 45 Themes and Skins 48 Themes 49 Working with Themes 51 Fundamentals of Navigation Controls 54 Control Adapters 58 Building Control Adapters 58 Browser Recognition 64 CSS Friendly Adapters 66 Summary 66 Chapter 3 Data Binding 67 Declarative Data Binding 68 Data Binding 68 Data Source Controls 70 Storing Connection Strings 82 Data Source Parameters 83 New Data-Bound Controls 87 Data-Binding Evaluation Syntax 91 Declarative Data-Binding Techniques 91 Hierarchical Data Binding 96 Binding to Objects 102 Typed DataSets 112 Summary 112 Chapter 4 State Management 113 Cross-Page Posting 114 Fundamentals 114 Implementation 120 Caveats 121 Multi-Source Cross-Page Posting 124 Wizard and MultiView Controls 127 Same Page State Management 127 Wizard Control 128 MultiView and View Controls 131 Profile 133 Fundamentals 133 Migrating Anonymous Profile Data 137 Managing Profile Data 138 Storing Profile Data 138 Serialization 139 User-Defined Types as Profile Properties 142 Optimizing Profile 143 Going the Custom Route 147 Summary 149 Chapter 5 Security 151 How Much Security Do I Need? 151 Getting Started with Membership 153 Provider Architecture 158 MembershipProvider 160 The Login Control 162 User Account Lockout: Blessing or Curse? 164 Password Complexity Policy 166 Choosing a Password Format 167 Password Questions and Answers 169 Configuring a Membership Provider 170 Custom Providers 172 Using the Membership Class to Access Your Provider 173 SQL Database Permissions 175 The LoginView and Other Controls 177 The Role Manager 180 Configuring the Role Manager and Provider 181 Other Role Providers 183 A Word about Machine Keys 184 Cookieless Forms Authentication 185 SiteMapProvider Security Trimming 187 Configuration File Encryption 188 Summary 191 Chapter 6 Web Parts 193 Web Part Fundamentals 194 Portal Components 194 Building a Minimal Portal Page 195 Display Mode 201 Catalog Parts and Zones 204 Properties 206 Editor Parts and Zones 210 Verbs 211 Connections 214 Personalization Scope 218 Exporting and Importing Web Parts 220 Formatting Web Parts and Zones 225 User Controls as Web Parts 226 Personalization Data and Providers 231 Changing the Personalization Data Store 233 Creating Your Own Personalization Provider 235 Summary 239 Chapter 7 Diagnostics 241 Health Monitoring and Web Events 241 Web Event Hierarchy 242 Which Events Should I Monitor? 245 Built-in Providers 245 The E-Mail Providers 248 The SQL Provider 251 Buffering 252 Registering for Events 254 Throttling and Profiles 256 Mapping the Health Monitoring Configuration Section 258 Custom Web Events 258 Custom Providers 261 Tracing in ASP.NET 2.0 264 Programmatic Access to Trace Output 264 Integration with System.Diagnostics Tracing 266 Funneling Web Events to System.Diagnostics Trace Listeners 268 Event Tracing for Windows: Debugging Without a Debugger 269 Summary 277 Chapter 8 Performance 279 Caching 279 Data Source Caching 280 Cache Dependencies 284 Programmatic Fragment Caching 296 Post-Cache Substitution 298 Cache Profiles 300 General Performance Enhancements 302 Client Callbacks 302 Client Callback Framework 302 On-Demand TreeView Node Population 306 Atlas 307 Summary 308 Chapter 9 Asynchrony 309 The Need for Asynchrony 310 Exploiting Parallelism 310 Relaxing Thread-Pool Contention 316 Techniques for Issuing Asynchronous Tasks 317 Asynchronous Web Access 317 AsyncOperationManager and Asynchronous Web Service Calls 320 Asynchronous Tasks 321 Dependent Asynchronous Tasks 324 Asynchronous Pages 326 Async="true" 326 Relaxing Thread-Pool Pressure 328 AddOnPreRenderCompleteAsync 329 Thread-Relative Resources 330 Summary 330 Index 333