Trying to understand ASP.NET 4.8 useability with visual studio 2022

jeff from Baltimore 20

Hello, I am a hobbyist who is still using visual web developer 2008 to create .aspx forms for my simple websites. My backend language of choice is VB. I realize that this approach is old school, but has been working for me. I am better with HTML, CSS, and plain Javascript manipulation than I am with object oriented programming tasks. Question, I have been playing around with visual studio 2019 and visual studio 2022. Can I upgrade to either IDE and continue using the .NET4.8 framework and continue to create .aspx files with VB? Thanks

Accepted answer

Lan Huang-MSFT 25,636 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-04-04T05:32:21.0666667+00:00

Hi @jeff from Baltimore,

VB can be used in Visual Studio 2022. How to use Visual Studio to create a Visual Basic application, you can view the tutorial.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/get-started/visual-basic/?view=vs-2022

continue to create .aspx files with VB

You can create a WebForm project, select Visual Basic for language when creating the project at the beginning, then select 4.8 for Framework, and then select Web Forms.

Best regards,
Lan Huang

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jeff from Baltimore 20 Reputation points

2024-04-20T16:25:53.6633333+00:00

Thank you both for your insightful answers. I am now up and running with VS 2022 and asp.net web forms.

I do have another question. Are classic asp.net web forms an attempt to abstract-out / minimize the use of javascript? Since I wrote the previous question, I have done a deep dive into HTML/CSS/javascript. I have the feeling that I should be migrating to asp.net mcv where I can let my new HTML/CSS/javascript skills run free. I get the feeling that the classic asp.net web forms tries to inhibit this. Thanks.
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1 additional answer

Albert Kallal 4,651 Reputation points

2024-02-26T19:45:10.04+00:00

Yes, there is full support for your setup. I currently maintain a site that was asp.net, and .net 4.0 framework. We have changed the project settings, and are now using 4.8 for the web site. And I'm using the free edition of Visual Studio 2022. While this technology is older, there is full support for a Web Forms site or even a Web Forms application. However, by default, vs2022 does not install all the parts required for Webform development. (it's already a large product. And visual studio has so many project types that you can create, that it can be overwhelming. So, now by default, the project types (such as WebForms) are not installed by default. So, after having installed Visual Studio, then you need to install what are called "additional" workflows. Once done, then you can develop just fine. So, from vs2022, then go tools->Get tools and features. From that, you want to ensure these are selected:

Then on the right side, make sure you select these:

At that point, you can now say create a brand new asp.net webforms site. the template you choose is this one after selecting new project:

So, if you have a existing project (.sln), then you should be able to open that project. Even ones created by that 2008 version of Visual Studio. And last but not least? By default, the newer WebForms desinger is turned on, but it does not correctly support drag + drop from the toolbox to the web form desinger surface, so you should change this setting: tools-options->geneal This setting:

So, you are 100% free to use asp.net, WebForms, and vb.net. As noted, I currently support some sites based on the above choices.
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jeff from Baltimore 20 Reputation points

2024-04-20T17:23:16.92+00:00

Thank you both for your insightful answers. I am now up and running with VS 2022 and asp.net web forms.

I do have another question. Are classic asp.net web forms an attempt to abstract-out / minimize the use of javascript? Since I wrote the previous question, I have done a deep dive into HTML/CSS/javascript. I have the feeling that I should be migrating to asp.net mcv where I can let my new HTML/CSS/javascript skills run free. I get the feeling that the classic asp.net web forms tries to inhibit this. Thanks.

Albert Kallal 4,651 Reputation points

2024-04-20T20:43:37.2666667+00:00

Webforms are really cool, since you can do boatloads of work without having to write JavaScript. So, this means a really nice reduced learning curve. And you can often add and use a UpdatePanel which will "ajax" part of the page (allowing updates and buttons to avoid a full page post back), and again avoid having to write and use JavaScript.

However, there is zero stopping you from using or adding some JavaScript to such forms, and support for bootstrap, jQuery, jQuery.UI, or near all of the modern JavaScript frameworks that you want to adopt can be used. As such they are 100% supported with webforms.

So, often we say have a GridView of data, and I want to pop up a row edit for a given row. So, "most" of the code you write can and will be nice easy to write server side code.

However, for some extra "cool" bits and parts, then one is free to use say bootstrap, or a nice jQuery.UI dialog.

Say this GridView:

<asp:GridView ID="GHotels" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" DataKeyNames="ID"> <Columns> <asp:BoundField DataField="FirstName" HeaderText="FirstName" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="LastName" HeaderText="LastName" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="HotelName" HeaderText="HotelName" /> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Active" ItemStyle-HorizontalAlign="Center"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:CheckBox ID="chkActive" runat="server" Checked='<%# Eval("Active") %>' /> </ItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:BoundField DataField="Description" HeaderText="Description" /> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Hotel Information" ItemStyle-HorizontalAlign="Center"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:Button ID="cmdView" runat="server" Text="Edit" CssClass="btn" OnClick="cmdView_Click" /> </ItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> </Columns> </asp:GridView>

And my code behind to load this GridView:

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load If Not IsPostBack Then LoadGrid() End If End Sub Sub LoadGrid() Dim rstData As DataTable = MyRst("SELECT * FROM tblHotelsA ORDER BY HotelName") GHotels.DataSource = rstData GHotels.DataBind() End Sub

And the result is this:

Now, in my humble opinion, I think the above looks old and tired.

However, all your asp.net projects will and do include bootstrap by default.

So, let's do a bit of magic here, and add bootstrap css class(s) to above.

So, our GridView becomes this:

<asp:GridView ID="GHotels" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" DataKeyNames="ID" Width="50%" CssClass="table table-hover table-striped" > <Columns> ....

Now, when I run the above, I see this:

So, does not above now look really great? So, the above is a great example of adding + adopting bootstrap for your layouts.

And say when I click on the Edit button, I want to pop open a dialog to edit the one row.

So, this assumes we have jQuery, jQuery.UI installed. (jQuery again is near always installed for you, but you have to add jQuery.UI to your project for the following to work:

So, right below the GridView on this page, I'll add some markup to display one record for editing.

So, we add some markup for editing. (I'll not post all).

<div id="HotelInfo" runat="server" style="float:left;display: none;border:solid;padding:15px;background-color:white;width:48%" clientidmode="Static" > <style> .iForm label {display:inline-block;width:120px} .iForm input {border-radius:8px;border-width:1px;margin-bottom:10px} .iForm textarea {border-radius:8px;border-width:1px;margin-bottom:10px} .iForm input[type=checkbox] {margin-right:4px} </style> <div style="float:left" class="iForm"> <label>HotelName</label><asp:TextBox ID="txtHotel" runat="server" width="280"></asp:TextBox> <br /> <label>First Name</label><asp:TextBox ID="txtFirst" runat="server" width="280"></asp:TextBox> <br /> <label>Last Name</label><asp:TextBox ID="txtLast" runat="server" width="280"></asp:TextBox> <br />

And below that, we will add our JavaScript that uses the jQuery.UI. So, this code:

<script> function popinfo(pbtn, strHotelName) { // btn = row buttion - we use that for position of pop btn = $('#' + pbtn) var MyDialog = $("#HotelInfo") MyDialog.dialog({ title: strHotelName, modal: true, position: { my: 'right top', at: 'left bottom', of: btn }, width: "48%", dialogClass: "dialogWithDropShadow", }) } </script>

So, above is some JavaScript, and it uses jQuery and jQuery.UI (which includes that cool dialog library).

So, my edit a row click event is this:

Protected Sub cmdView_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) ' Row click - get hotel informaton, fill out the pop div Dim btn As Button = sender Dim gRow As GridViewRow = btn.NamingContainer Dim intPK As Integer = GHotels.DataKeys(gRow.RowIndex).Item("ID") Dim rstData As DataTable rstData = MyRst($"SELECT * FROM tblHotelsA WHERE ID = {intPK}") Call EditOne(rstData, btn) End Sub Sub EditOne(rstData As DataTable, btn As Button) Call fLoader(HotelInfo, rstData.Rows(0)) ' Load up conrols ' call our js pop function. Dim strHotelName = $"Edit Information for {rstData.Rows(0).Item("HotelName")}" Dim strJavaScript As String = $"popinfo('{btn.ClientID}','{strHotelName}');" ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(Page, Page.GetType, "mypop", strJavaScript, True) End Sub

And now the result is this:

So, above adopted bootstrap, jQuery, jQuery.UI, and thus we went from something that looks a bit old, to something that looks great due to adopting some of these newer technologies.

WebForms is considered quite old right now (legacy), but it is a really easy system to get started and jump into web development if you are coming from a desktop development environment. In other words, the above code and even writing such code fells much like when I was writing MS-Access code.
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