We'll focus on the steps of requirements-analysis and design (though not in extreme detail), followed by planning and mapping out the site. While this seems like the natural way to get started, it's often skimped or even omitted, allowing the site to develop in a haphazard and unpredictable way. While this is not always categorically wrong, it does make development and maintenance that much more difficult.
Once the basic design in is place we'll look at the development of the various resources that make up the complete site. Of course, repetition is commonplace in a Web site, and so to make the book as useful as possible we've taken some liberties to try and cover as many useful topics as possible. It means that we can look at a range of things such as:
- Achieving the maximum of cross-browser support
- A central "Home page" that makes navigation of the whole site easy
- Displaying data about the products available from the site from a backend database
- Interactive content driven by either or both server-side and client-side code
- Creating graphics on the fly, and other animations to liven up the site
- A "login" feature that recognizes users and provides optional personalization
- An online order facility with order tracking and status reports via email
- Some ASP.NET development tools that are available now, or are on the way
All ASP.NET the code you see listed in the book, with the exception of simple abstract snippets that demonstrate a specific principle or just show the syntax, is available in both VB.NET and C#. The listings you see in the book are mostly written using VB.NET syntax, but avoid any language-specific features wherever possible, so that it can easily be converted to other languages by any reasonably capable developer who prefers to work in a different language. Where there is an obvious difference between VB.NET and C# in the way that a specific feature is implemented, we show the C# version as well. Meanwhile, the client-side code is predominantly written in JavaScript/JScript.
What This Book Is:
- It is a practical approach aimed at achieving useful goals without drowning in complexity
- It is a guide to many of the useful and powerful interface-oriented features of ASP.NET
- It is an exploration of a process for designing and building an interactive Web site
- It is a useful introduction to many peripheral techniques, such as drawing and email
- It is a demonstration of how easy ASP.NET makes building great Web sites
- It is, hopefully, informative, useful, and fun to read
What This Book Is Not:
- It's not a dry reference book on any particular area of the technologies
- It's not an academic text that follows every thread or aspect of any one technology
- It's not about hardware performance or software configuration for ASP.NET
- It's not about SQL programming, server optimization or data access theory
- It's not aimed at system or database administrators - it's aimed at developers
