Table of contents
1.
Introduction
2.
ASP.NET Web Forms
3.
Challenges To Overcome
3.1.
Implementing a rich Web user interface
3.2.
Separation of client and server
3.3.
Stateless execution
3.4.
Unknown client capabilities
3.5.
Complications with data access 
3.6.
Complications with scalability
3.7.
An intuitive, consistent object model
3.8.
Event-driven programming model
3.9.
Intuitive state management
3.10.
Browser-independent applications
3.11.
.NET Framework common language runtime support
3.12.
.NET Framework scalable server performance
4.
ASP.NET Web Forms Models
4.1.
The ASP.NET Component Model
5.
Features of ASP.NET Web Forms
5.1.
Master Pages
5.2.
Working with Data
5.3.
Membership
5.4.
Client Script and Client Frameworks
5.5.
Routing
5.6.
State Management
5.7.
Security
5.8.
Performance
5.9.
Debugging and Error Handling
6.
Advantages of ASP.NET Web Forms
7.
FAQs
8.
Key Takeaways
Last Updated: Mar 27, 2024

ASP.NET Web Forms Introduction

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Introduction

Active Server Pages (ASP) and Active Server Pages (ASP.NET) are server-side technologies for displaying interactive web pages.

ASP.NET offers developers a wide range of options in a large, diverse ecosystem of libraries and tools. Developers can also design custom libraries that can be shared with any .NET platform application.

ASP.NET is a web development platform that includes a programming paradigm, a comprehensive software infrastructure, and a number of services for developing sophisticated web applications for both PCs and mobile devices.

ASP.NET is built on top of the HTTP protocol, and it makes use of HTTP commands and policies to establish bidirectional communication and cooperation between the browser and the server.

The Microsoft.Net platform includes ASP.NET. ASP.NET applications are compiled code built with the .Net framework's extensible and reusable components and classes. These programmes can access the entire .Net framework class hierarchy.

ASP.NET Web Forms

Visual Studio comes with ASP.NET Web Forms, which is part of the ASP.NET web application platform. ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web Pages, and ASP.NET Single Page Apps are the other three programming paradigms you can use to construct ASP.NET web applications.

Web Forms in ASP.NET are pages that your users request through their browser. HTML, client-script, server controls, and server code can all be used to create these pages. When users request a page, the framework compiles and executes it on the server, then generates the HTML markup that the browser may render. In any browser or client device, an ASP.NET Web Forms page displays information to the user.

ASP.NET Web Forms may be created with Visual Studio. Drag and drop server controls to set out your Web Forms page in the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The properties, methods, and events for controls on the page, as well as the page itself, can then be readily set. These attributes, methods, and events are used to define the behaviour, appearance, and feel of a web page, among other things. We can use a.NET language like Visual Basic or C# to develop server code to handle the page's logic.

ASP.NET Web Forms are:

  • Based on Microsoft ASP.NET technology, ASP.NET Web Forms dynamically create Web page output to the browser or client device using server-side code.
  • Any browser or mobile device will work. For features like styles, layout, and so on, an ASP.NET Web page automatically renders the right browser-compliant HTML.
  • Compatible with any.NET common language runtime-supported languages, such as Microsoft Visual Basic and Microsoft Visual C#.
  • The Microsoft.NET Framework was used to create this application. This gives all of the framework's advantages, including a controlled environment, type safety, and inheritance.
  • Because we can add user-created and third-party controls to them, they're versatile.

ASP.NET Web Forms provides us with:

  • Separation of HTML and other UI code from the application logic is possible with ASP.NET Web Forms.
  • A comprehensive set of server controls for typical tasks such as data access.
  • Data binding that is both powerful and easy to use.
  • Client-side scripting that runs in the browser is supported.
  • Routing, security, performance, internationalisation, testing, debugging, error handling, and state management are among the various features supported.

Challenges To Overcome

Building traditional client-based apps does not pose the same issues as programming web applications. The following are some of the difficulties:

Implementing a rich Web user interface

Designing and implementing a user interface using simple HTML facilities can be challenging and time-consuming, especially if the website has a complicated structure, a lot of dynamic material, and full-featured user-interactive elements.

Separation of client and server

The client (browser) and server in a Web application are two separate programmes that are often operated on different computers (and even on different operating systems). As a result, the two portions of the application share relatively little information; they can communicate, but only short bits of simple data are normally sent.

Stateless execution

When a Web server receives a page request, it locates the requested page, processes it, transmits it to the browser, and then deletes all page data. If the user requests the same webpage again, the server goes through the entire procedure again, starting from the beginning. A server, in other words, has no memory of the pages it has processed—pages are stateless. As a result, if an application has to keep track of information about a page, its statelessness can be problematic.

Unknown client capabilities

Web applications are frequently accessible to a large number of users using a variety of browsers. Because browsers have varied capabilities, it's tough to make an application that works in all of them.

Complications with data access 

In typical Web applications, reading from and publishing to a data source can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.

Complications with scalability

Because of the lack of compatibility between the various components of the application, many Web applications created with existing methodologies fail to satisfy scalability goals. This is a common failure point for apps that are experiencing rapid expansion.

Meeting these obstacles in Web applications might take a lot of time and effort. These issues are addressed in the following ways by ASP.NET Web Forms and the ASP.NET framework:

An intuitive, consistent object model

The ASP.NET page framework has an object model that allows you to think of your forms as a single entity rather than as client and server components. You can programme the page in a more straightforward way under this architecture than in standard Web apps, including setting settings for page elements and responding to events. Furthermore, ASP.NET server controls are a layer of abstraction between the physical contents of an HTML page and the browser-server interface. In general, you may work with server controls in the same way you would with client controls, without having to worry about how to present and process the controls and their contents in HTML.

Event-driven programming model

The common approach of writing event handlers for events that occur on either the client or the server is brought to Web applications by ASP.NET Web Forms. The ASP.NET page framework abstracts this paradigm such that the underlying technique of recording a client event, transferring it to the server, and calling the relevant method is completely automated and transparent to you. The end result is a code structure that is simple to write and promotes event-driven development.

Intuitive state management

The ASP.NET page framework takes care of preserving the state of your page and its controls for you, and it also gives you explicit means to keep track of application-specific data. This is done without putting a strain on the server's resources, and it can be done with or without sending cookies to the web browser.

Browser-independent applications

The ASP.NET framework lets you write all of your application logic on the server, removing the need to code for browser differences manually. However, it allows you to use browser-specific features by writing client-side code to increase efficiency and give a better client experience.

.NET Framework common language runtime support

Since the ASP.NET page framework is based on the.NET Framework, every ASP.NET application may access the complete framework. Any language which is compatible with the runtime can be used to write your applications. Furthermore, data access is made easier by the.NET Framework's data access infrastructure, which includes ADO.NET.

.NET Framework scalable server performance

The ASP.NET page allows you to expand your Web application from a single machine with a single processor to a multi-computer Web form without requiring complicated logic changes.

ASP.NET Web Forms Models

Web forms in ASP.NET extend the event-driven interaction concept to web applications. The browser sends a web form to the web server, which responds with a full markup page or HTML page.

All user actions on the client are sent to the server for stateful processing. The server interprets the results of the client actions and initiates the responses.

HTTP is no longer a stateful protocol. The ASP.NET framework aids in the storage of information about the application's state, which includes:

  • the condition of the page
  • State of the session

The page state refers to the client's current state, which includes the contents of various input fields in the web form. The overall session state is the sum of the information received from the many pages the user visited and worked with. Let's use the example of a shopping cart to illustrate the notion.

Items are added to a shopping cart by the user. Items are chosen from one page, such as the things page, and the total number of items and their prices are displayed on another page, such as the cart page. Only HTTP can keep track of all the data flowing in from different pages. The information acquired globally over a session is kept track of by the ASP.NET session state and server-side infrastructure.

While generating ASP.NET runtime codes, the ASP.NET runtime transports the page state to and from the server and incorporates the state of the server-side components in hidden fields.

The server becomes aware of the total application state and acts in a two-tiered linked manner as a result of this.

The ASP.NET Component Model

The ASP.NET component model provides different ASP.NET page building components.

  • It is essentially an object model that explains the server-side counterparts of practically all HTML elements or tags, such as and.
  • Server controls that aid in the creation of complicated user interfaces. Take, for example, the Calendar or Gridview controls.

ASP.NET is a technology that runs on the .Net framework and includes all web-related features. An object-oriented hierarchy underpins the .Net framework. Pages make up an ASP.NET web application. When the user requests an ASP.NET page, IIS(Internet Information Services)  passes the request to the ASP.NET runtime system for processing.

The ASP.NET runtime converts the .aspx page into an instance of a class that inherits from the .Net framework's base class page. As a result, each ASP.NET page is an object, as are all of its components, such as the server-side controls.

Features of ASP.NET Web Forms

Web Forms has a large number of server controls. These objects execute when the page is requested and render markup to the browser. Some Web server controls, such as buttons and text boxes, are similar to HTML elements. It also has controls for connecting to data sources and displaying data.

Master Pages

It enables us to develop a uniform layout for our application's pages. This page establishes the style and feel, as well as the expected behaviour, for all of the pages in our application. When users request content pages, they are combined with the master page to provide output that combines the master page's layout with the content from the content page.

Working with Data

We use data-bound controls in an ASP.NET Web Forms application to automate the presentation or input of data in web page UI components like tables, text boxes, and drop-down lists.

Membership

The files in the Project's Account folder implement the many aspects of membership, such as enrolling, logging in, changing a password, and approving access. OAuth and OpenID are also supported by ASP.NET Web Forms. These enhancements to authentication allow users to enter into your site using their existing credentials, such as those from Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

Client Script and Client Frameworks

By incorporating client-script capabilities in ASP.NET Web Form pages, we may improve the server-based features of ASP.NET. Client script can be used to provide users with a richer, more responsive user interface. Client script can also be used to make asynchronous requests to the Web server while a page is being shown in the browser.

Routing

Our application's URL routing can be configured. A request URL is an address that a user types into their browser to access a specific page on our website. Routing allows us to create URLs that are semantically meaningful to users and can aid in search engine optimisation (SEO).

State Management

ASP.NET Web Forms provides a number of methods for preserving data on a per-page and application-wide basis.

Security

The most crucial component of the software development process is creating a secure application. We can use ASP.NET Web Forms to add extensibility points and configuration options to the application, allowing us to define various security behaviours.

Performance

Web Forms has good performance and allows us to tweak page and server control processing, data access, state management, application configuration and loading, and coding techniques.

Debugging and Error Handling

We can troubleshoot issues with our Web Forms application. Debugging and error handling are widely supported in ASP.NET Web Forms, allowing us to develop and run our applications efficiently.

Advantages of ASP.NET Web Forms

The following are some benefits of using a framework based on Web Forms:

  • It has an event paradigm that keeps state via HTTP, which is useful for developing line-of-business Web applications. Hundreds of server controls are supported in the Web Forms-based application's dozens of events.
  • It makes use of the Page Controller design to provide specific pages with more functionality. 
  • It makes use of view state or server-based forms, which can help with state management.
  • It's ideal for small groups of Web developers and designers that want to make the most of the enormous number of components available for rapid application development.
  • Because the components (the Page class and so on) are tightly integrated and typically require less code than the MVC(Model–view–controller) paradigm, it is less complex for application development in general.

FAQs

  1. What is ASP.NET?
    Active Server Pages (ASP) and Active Server Pages (ASP.NET) are server-side technologies for displaying interactive web pages. ASP.NET offers developers a wide range of options in a large, diverse ecosystem of libraries and tools.
     
  2. What is a web form?
    Visual Studio comes with ASP.NET Web Forms, which is part of the ASP.NET web application platform. ASP.NET Web Pages, ASP.NET MVC, and ASP.NET Single Page Apps are the other three programming paradigms you can use to construct ASP.NET web applications.
     
  3. What are controls of the form?
    ASP.NET provides web forms controls, which are used to create HTML components. These controls are categorised as server-based and client-based.
    There are various server controls available for the web forms in ASP.NET:
    Label
    Checkbox
    Text Box
    Radio Button and many more.
     
  4. How do we handle the submit request from the web form?
    The handling of the submit request is based on the trigger mechanism of the code behind the file, which triggers when the submit button is clicked on the web forms.
     
  5. How do we run the user registration form?
    To run the web form, we just right click and select the view in the browser option in the code editor, to run the user registration form.

Key Takeaways

In this article, we learned about the concept of ASP.NET web forms. We learned about the features, models and advantages of ASP.NET web forms. We had a complete overview of ASP.NET web forms.

Apart from this, you can also expand your knowledge by referring to these articles on Features Of ASP Net and ASP Full Form.

For more information about backend development, get into the entire Backend web development course.

Happy Learning!

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