ASP.NET 2.0

I must admit than when I read last year in a Microsoft employee blog about the new features of ASP.NET 2.0, specifically the sentence that said "it would simplify the job of web developers by 70%" I thought that was a joke. However, after spending some time using it I must say that I totally agree with that statement. Let's have a look at the new controls available. The community controls, a feature already available in ASP.NET Web Matrix, is not functional in this build.

One of the things I like most is that Microsoft has merged the Web Parts Framework (WPF) within ASP.NET. Previously with version 1.1 of the framework that was not possible, it was necessary to install Windows SharePoint Services or SharePoint Portal Server 2003. These included the web parts assemblies, and you had to download the Web Parts SDK which added some new templates to Visual Studio .NET 2003 that enabled you to create custom web parts. Web Parts are useful if your application should look more like a portal. However the WPF is the front-end of a portal framework not a portal framework itself, so if you are looking for a portal framework, then develop using Web Parts against SharePoint Portal Server 2003 APIs. Below are some screenshots of an ASP.NET Intranet Site Project that I created, where you can appreciate some of the new functionality available to work with ASP.NET pages: Master Pages, tag editor, validation, publication, accessibility and the so much wanted XHTML formatting options, just to name a few.

Among the new tools I can not let go is the resource editor. The tool is really helpful for managing any kind of data that we want to embed as a resource within the ASP.NET assemblies.

Another helpful feature is the Visual Studio Web Server, which simplifies debugging and testing by running ASP.NET projects without an instance of IIS.