Is it true that .aspx (WebForms) is old technology and will be absent in all future asp.net versions?

Question

I wonder that people say that WebForms is old/legacy/outdated technology, and that everyone should create MVC/.Core projects, which have no .aspx pages.

Is it true that .aspx technology (WebForms) is not developed any more?

I like visual design in .aspx files, and I would be sad if .aspx pages (or pages with visual WYSIWYG "What you see is what you get" "Ms-Word-like"/Winforms-like editor) will be absent in newer versions of asp.net.

What is wrong with visual design in webForms and .aspx pages?

If there will be no .aspx, then I will feel sad just like in WPF I have to be sad that it has no RichTextBox etc, unlike "old" / legacy / outdated / unsupported WinForms technology.

Removing support for .aspx pages in new asp.net is like removing the core programming feature (object-oriented) - events for all clickable controls on page in browser.

Without .aspx visual design (like there is no .aspx editor for Linux version of Visual-Studio-Code)
i feel like I have to "reinvent wheel" and manually waste much time writing visual controls, ajax events etc etc.

why people say .aspx / WebForms is bad/unsupported and not developed by Microsoft anymore? Is it true?

Answer 1

Web Forms is part of ASP.NET. There will be security patches but no new .NET features. Web Forms will be around for a long time because .NET is part of Windows. All new development effort is going to ASP.NET Core (.NET 5 and soon .NET 6) which does not include Web Forms.

Keep in mind, Web Forms is NOT a WYSIWYG environment. It is possible to drag toolbar items to the design view in Visual Studio but HTML and CSS knowledge has always been required to create a layout. Well, since .NET 1.1.

What is wrong with visual design in webForms and .aspx pages?

There is nothing wrong with Web Forms. The customer base, developers, moved to JavaScript frameworks which does work well with server control HTML generation. It makes sense that Microsoft moved to MVC to support the direction web development was heading and its customer base.

i feel like I have to "reinvent wheel" and manually waste much time writing visual controls, ajax events etc etc.

The fact is modern web development is JavaScript centric. There are many JavaScript frameworks and components that handle common web dev like tables with sorting and paging or a date picker or whatever gadget. You simply need to learn how to use the libraries which is no different than learning how to use server controls in Web Forms.

Answer 2

Hi @Ivan ,
As far as I think,the Webform is not eliminated.It only has few people using.Comparing to mvc, core, webform is complex and the load speed is slow. Because others fit the popular development,so only few people use webform.

Best regards,
Yijing Sun

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Answer 3

ASPX is a wonder to work with. It came in much too early. It gives life to your imagination but the problem it has is that it only worked then on windows, asides that, trust me it still the wonder drug for coding. The bigger firms only went o JavaScript Platforms because they don't want to spend all their profits on hosting on Microsoft's Platforms for short its cheaper working with JavaScript frameworks. Annoyingly new developers are only following the rave of the moment. I don't see it going away but I think its coming back to becoming popular as Microsoft is now embracing other platforms.

Answer 4

Well, as pointed out, its still supported.

And for VS2022, they added new features, and a whole new rendering engine based on chrome.

And you can have live preview of data - right in the designer.

So this is a SIGNIFICANT investment into web forms.

So in vs2019, and for a very long time, the forms designer would display this:

But, now with the new designer, the same page can render the data, like this:

And when you make changes to the markup, you USED to have to hit save to see the changes appear in the forms desinger.

Now?

Live updates to source files
When you make changes to your Web Forms view files, those changes will automatically be shown in the designer. This is shown in the animation below. You do not need to save the file for changes to be applied, they will be applied as you type.

Ability to use design/preview features in the browser

In addition to using the design view in Visual Studio, you can also use a browser as the design surface. To get started click on the browser button in the design tool bar. Any browser that support EMCA2020 should work with Web Live Preview, which includes most modern browsers.

In other words, you can make changes in YOUR browser and the changes will appear in your markup!!!

So, this is VERY amazing, and is a BIG upgrade for web form developers.

You can read more about this and vs2022 here:

design-your-web-forms-apps-with-web-live-preview-in-visual-studio-2022

So, not only is web forms not dead yet, vs2022 has some VERY slick and cool features for web forms.

Not exactly are web forms dead as of yet.

So, are webforms legacy and older? Yes?

But, is Microsoft doing a great job, and not only supporting webforms, but they added some huge new features for vs2022, and the new rendering engine is based on chrome - that means your web forms designer will work all the more amazing. After all, this drag and drop - and visual design is one big reason why we all love and use webforms, right?

Regards,
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP 2003-2017)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada