DataBinding for Beginners in ASP.NET

DataBinding for Beginners in ASP.NET

When building any application, whether it’s ASP.NET web apps or WinForms desktop apps you will eventually come across the need to DataBind. DataBinding is the basic process of presenting dynamic data sources within a user interface component.

DataBinding isn’t limited to just interface components, but it is probably the most common occurrence you’ll encounter. Without DataBinding your web pages would only be able to display static data, or dynamic data populated programmatically.

DataBinding can take on numerous formats, from very simple to complex. The .NET framework also provides you with many possible DataBinding properties throughout the web control library to give you a lot of control and flexibility. Take for example a Label control, you can bind its foreground and background color properties. Although not a common requirement it shows binding can be more advanced than simple text values.

In this tutorial we’ll look at several basic examples of DataBinding on different controls available in ASP.NET. We’ll explore basic page property binding for a Label control, custom class property binding for a TextBox control, collection class binding for a DropDown control, and DataTable binding for a DataGrid control.

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Dreamweaver ASP.NET User Management System: Emailing Lost Passwords

In this tutorial, the third in my series on Forms based User Authentication and Authorization with Dreamweaver and ASP.NET, we’ll learn how to build an “Email Lost Password” page to complete our User Management System. If you have not yet read the first of this series, “Multi-Level Forms Authentication with Dreamweaver and ASP.NET: Roles Logins”, or the second Dreamweaver ASP.NET User Management System: Creating and Managing User Groups, I recommend you do so as this tutorial will build upon in earlier in depth discussions of the concepts involved. That said, this tutorial stands on it’s own in the presentation of the topics covered. If you already know how to configure your web site for forms authentication security and roles using the web.config, how to log those users in and associate the user’s identity and role, and how to control the user’s browsing experience programmatically based upon user identity, how to create new users and mange their group membership, then the first two tutorials are probably not for you. 

Before we get started, let’s see if you’re ready. This tutorial makes some assumptions about your skill level--that is, this tutorial is intended for intermediate users. If you’ve never configured a new site in Dreamweaver, never configured a database connection string, or never used the Dreamweaver database connectivity tools, this tutorial is probably not for you as you’ll need to be familiar with these concepts and techniques. If you have done these things but have very little or no experience hand coding, writing SQL statements, using the Dreamweaver advanced Dataset Dialog, don’t worry we’re doing this together and I’ll to do my part to bring you along.

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ASP.NET for Beginners

The purpose of this tutorial therefore is to give new developers or even veteran developers looking for a refresher, a very basic look at the core features and functionality of ASP.NET 1.1. We’ll review some of the theory and key concepts to ASP.NET and look at 2 very basic code examples.

We’ll try to unravel some of the mysteries behind what is going on when you use the types of features in ASP.NET so you have a more clear understanding of how to take the knowledge and apply it in your own applications.

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Dialogue Boxes in ASP.NET

Dialogue boxes are a fundamental part of any application, whether it be a desktop or web application.  They provide a basic level of interaction between the application and the end user, allowing the user to control basic application flow through various messages.

Web applications in general often make it difficult to implement even basic functionality that is easily provided in the desktop world due to the single request/response methodology in a thin client/server model. To make matters worse, the ASP.NET postback pattern makes it even more difficult to customize page flow.

Although the postback pattern in ASP.NET has made a world of improvements in everyday basic development, it has also created several new shortcomings and limitations that require some trickery and creativity to make certain features work.

Adding even further to the limitations of the postback pattern is the use of JavaScript by the .NET framework to control most user interface events. Clicking a button for example executes some JavaScript which reloads the page, sending a postback event to the server.

The reason this complicates matters so much is because most developers turn to JavaScript when implementing basic client side features, such as confirmations, alerts and popups. Tying into the existing JavaScript used by the .NET framework isn’t always the easiest and requires a thorough understanding of the JavaScript utilized by .NET on web form controls.

In this tutorial we will look at 3 different methods of providing basic user input and interaction using JavaScript and ASP.NET controls. We will look at how we can append our own functionality to the built in .NET JavaScript functionality provided by ASP.NET user controls.

The 3 examples we will look at are as follows:

1)       Alert information display

2)       Confirmation conditional processing

3)       Modal Dialogue Popup window with conditional processing

Although this tutorial is built using ASP.NET with Visual Studio .NET, the code required is extremely simplistic and the functionality is geared more towards JavaScript client side code.

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Dreamweaver ASP.NET User Management System: Creating and Managing User Groups

Managing users and user groups users is necessary on a number of websites, for instance the one you’re using now has different user groups with different duties and levels or authority. If you’ve spent much time developing with Dreamweaver and Classic ASP, you used Dreamweaver’s built in support for user management. If you wanted to create a new user, it was only a point and a click away in the Server Behaviours drop down. Imagine my surprise when, while building my first ASP.NET application, I found no such behaviour I could simply apply. No, I had to figure it out myself and it was far too late to add any extra money to the project budget for overtime! As it turned out, with careful thought and a few Google searches, I was able to craft a page that added new users without duplicates and without killing my weekend.

In this tutorial, the second in my series on Forms based User Authentication and Authorization with Dreamweaver and ASP.NET, we’ll learn how to build a “Create New User” page and a User Management System for assigning Roles to new users by joining them to user groups. If you have not yet read the first of this series, “Multi-Level Forms Authentication with Dreamweaver and ASP.NET: Roles Logins”, I recommend you do so as this tutorial will build upon in depth discussions of the concepts involved found in the first tutorial.

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