Top 10 Features in ASP.NET

ASP.Net, an open source, server-side web application framework, introduced by Microsoft to create dynamic web pages. The framework is designed to help programmers in developing dynamic websites, web applications, and web services.

ASP.Net first version i-e ASP.Net 1.0, was released in January 2002. ASP.Net is built on CLR (Common Language Runtime), let programmers write ASP.Net code with any .net supported languages such as C#, J#, JScript and Visual Basic .net. With ASP.Net you can create more interactive and data-driven web applications. ASP consists a variety of control like text boxes, buttons, and labels for assembling, configuring, and manipulating the code to create HTML pages.

Microsoft ASP.Net 4.5

Microsoft ASP.Net is one of the most successful application development frameworks. The latest and the newest version of this framework is 4.5. ASP.Net is quick to develop and deploy highly scalable and fast performance web applications in a managed environment. Here in this article, I am to going to discuss the top 10 features of ASP.Net 4.5 for the developers.

1. Bundling & Minification Feature

The bundling and minification feature in ASP.Net 4.5 will bundle and minimize the size of the scripts and style sheets used in your application. The feature is a great addition in the performance of any web application.

2. Strongly Typed Data Controls

ASP.Net 4.5 have strongly typed data controls. It gives intellisense, just assign the ItemType property to a model which is going to be associated with the data controls used in the aspx pages.

3. Model Binding

ASP.Net 4.5 Model Binding feature allows to develop Web forms which are independent of the model that populates the view. The biggest advantage of ASP.Net 4.5 Model Binding is you can easily unit test the methods. Model Binding in ASP.Net 4.5 is supported through the namespace “System.Web.ModelBinding”. The namespace has value provider classes like ControlAttribute, QueryStringAttribute etc. All these mentioned classes are inherited from the ValueProviderSourceAttribute class.

4. Value Providers

ASP.Net 4.5 offers many Value Providers which can be used to filter the data. Here are some:

• Querystring
• Session
• Cookie
• Control Value

5. Support for OpenID in OAuth Logins

ASP.Net 4.5 gives the support for OpenID for OAuth logins. One can easily use external services to login into the application. Like ASP.Net MVC 4, ASP.Net 4.5 also allows you to register OAuth provider in the App_Start/AuthConfig.cs file. This data dictionary is also can be used to pass additional data.

6. Support for improved paging in ASP.NET 4.5 GridView control

Paging support in ASP.Net 4.5 GridView control is improved a lot in this version. ASP.Net 4.5 GridView.AllowCustomPaging property gives great support for paging and sorting through the large amounts of data more efficiently.

7. Advanced Support for Asynchronous Programming

ASP.Net 4.5 gives excellent support in asynchronous programming. Now you can read and write HTTP requests and responses without the requirement of OS threads. Also, now you have the support of two new keywords await and async.

8. Support for Web Sockets

HTML5 web sockets allows to perform duplex communication between the client browser and the web server. ASP.Net 4.5 offers the support for the web socket protocols. Now you can leverage WebSockets in the ASP.Net web applications.

The namespace which supports the WebSocket is System.Net.WebSocket.

9. Support for HTML5 Form Types

ASP.Net gives excellent support for HTML5 form types. The below following list are the new controls available in HTML5.

• Email
• URL
• Number
• Range
• Date pickers like date, month, week, time
• Search

10. ASP.Net Web API

ASP.Net Web API is included in ASP.Net MVC 4 and ASP.Net Web Forms. This new feature will help you to build and consume HTTP services easily.