October 2008 Entries

Thank you to everyone who came to my jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX PDC talk!  As promised, I've added a link to the demo code from the talk to this blog entry. There are three separate downloads: jQuery Demos -- Contains sample code that demonstrates how to use jQuery selectors, animations, and plug-ins. PhotoGallery Application -- Contains a simple Photo Gallery application in which photos are fetched by making Ajax calls to a web service. Demonstrates using the new Client Side Templates features of ASP.NET AJAX. MovieDatabase Application -- Contains an ASP.NET MVC application that uses jQuery and Ajax. Demonstrates how to build applications that...

Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2008 11:51 PM

In this blog entry, I list the essential tips and tricks that every developer who uses Visual Studio 2008 should know. I wanted to keep this list brief. I also wanted to focus on only those tips and tricks that I use on a daily basis. Almost all of these tips and tricks are just as useful regardless of whether you are building an ASP.NET Web Forms or ASP.NET MVC application. Tip #1 – You don’t need to select a line to copy or delete it I always cringe whenever I see someone select an entire line of code in the Visual...

Posted Tuesday, October 21, 2008 4:04 PM

Now that ASP.NET MVC Beta 1 is out, how do you learn how to use it? How do you learn how to build ASP.NET MVC applications? Here are my recommendations. The main website for all information related to ASP.NET MVC is located at: http://www.ASP.net/mvc This website contains a large number of videos, tutorials, and links to blogs and documentation. Here is how I would suggest navigating all of this material. First, I would recommend watching the video Creating a Tasklist Application with ASP.NET MVC located at: http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc-videos/video-395.aspx In this 38 minute video, I walk through creating a very basic MVC application from start to finish....

Posted Friday, October 17, 2008 3:18 PM

Mark your calendars and come to my jQuery in ASP.NET talk at PDC. It looks like my talk is scheduled for Tuesday (10/28/2008) at 5:15pm. You can still register for the PDC here: http://www.microsoftpdc.com/ I'm really excited about the new possibilities that jQuery, in combination with the new features of the ASP.NET AJAX framework, opens up for building Ajax applications. My talk discusses using jQuery in the context of both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC applications. Here's the talk description:   Introducing jQuery in ASP.NET jQuery is an open source JavaScript library that has a passionate following among Ajax developers. Microsoft is integrating the...

Posted Wednesday, October 15, 2008 1:24 PM

I created three new ASP.NET MVC tutorials that were just published at the www.ASP.net/mvc website. There are both C# and VB.NET versions of each tutorial. Here are the direct links and descriptions: Creating Custom HTML Helpers Create new HTML Helpers to make it easier to generate view content. Stephen Walther demonstrates two simple methods of creating new HTML Helpers. Creating Model Classes with LINQ to SQL Learn how to create data access classes by taking advantage of Microsoft LINQ to...

Posted Saturday, October 11, 2008 12:00 AM

In this tip, I explore one approach to building Ajax applications with ASP.NET MVC. I show how you can use view data when building Ajax applications with ASP.NET MVC in the same way as you would use view data when building server-side application. I demonstrate how to create a custom HTML Helper that renders client view data. One of the primary benefits of building an ASP.NET MVC application is that it enables you to build web applications that support a sharp separation of concerns. This sharp separation of concerns enables you to build applications that are highly testable and highly adaptable...

Posted Wednesday, October 08, 2008 4:44 PM

In this series of tutorials, I build an entire ASP.NET MVC application from start to finish. In this entry, I add a Silverlight file upload control to make it easier to upload multiple media files. This blog entry is part of a series of entries on using ASP.NET MVC to build an entire Family Video Website from scratch. Before reading this entry, you might want to read the previous four entries: Family Video Website #1 – Upload the Videos – In this entry, I create an MVC controller that accepts large file uploads. Family Video Website #2 –Add the Database – In this...

Posted Friday, October 03, 2008 4:10 AM