Visual Studio Web Development Content Map

This content map lists topics and resources on using Visual Studio for web development.

Important

ASP.NET 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012 provides information on changes and enhancements in the web development features of Visual Studio 2012.

About Web Development in Visual Studio

Visual Studio has a full-featured development environment that helps you create ASP.NET web applications. It provides a powerful web page editor that includes WYSIWYG editing and an HTML editing mode with IntelliSense and validation. You can create and design a consistent site layout with master pages and consistent page appearance with themes and skins. Visual Studio also includes a code editor that enables you to write code for your dynamic web pages in Visual Basic or Visual C#. You can use the debugger to help you find errors in your code, and you can test your application by using a local web server. Visual Studio also includes tools for publishing your web applications to a hosting site.

ASP.NET is a web development framework for building dynamic websites with Visual Studio. For more information about ASP.NET, see ASP.NET Overview.

Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web

If you want to see what web development in Visual Studio is like, you can install a free version of Visual Studio (Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web) by using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. For more information about Visual Studio Express, see Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web and Comparing Visual Studio and Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web.

Scenarios and Topics

Unless otherwise noted, the following resources refer to new or updated content for web development in Visual Studio 2012. For additional resources related to web development in Visual Studio, see the Visual Web Developer Content Map.

Scenario	Topics
Getting Started	Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web Comparing Visual Studio and Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web Visual Studio Templates for Web Projects Types of Web Site Projects in Visual Studio (2010) Web Application Projects versus Web Site Projects (2010)
Editing HTML	Walkthrough: Basic HTML Editing in Visual Studio for Web Forms Pages How to: Insert HTML Hyperlinks and Bookmarks in Design View for Web Forms Pages Walkthrough: Using HTML Snippets Walkthrough: Advanced HTML Editing in Visual Studio for Web Forms Pages Markup Validation in Visual Studio
Editing cascading style sheets (CSS)	Working with CSS Overview Walkthrough: Creating and Modifying a CSS File Walkthrough: Working with an Existing CSS File How to: Use the CSS Properties Window Exercise 1: What's New in the CSS Editor (MSDN)
Working with Page Inspector	Page Inspector - Decomposing your Web Application (video) Using Page Inspector in ASP.NET MVC (video) Using Page Inspector in ASP.NET MVC (tutorial) Using Page Inspector in ASP.NET Web Forms (tutorial) Using Page Inspector in Visual Studio 2012 (MSDN Hands-on Lab)
Testing Web pages	Testing Web Pages in Visual Studio
Deploying Web applications	Web Deployment Content Map for Visual Studio and ASP.NET
Customizing the Visual Studio environment	How to: Select Web Development Environment Settings
Using Windows Azure	ASP.NET MVC web site with SQL Database (windowsazure.com web site) ASP.NET MVC cloud service with SQL Database (windowsazure.com web site) Web Scenarios (windowsazure.com web site)

See Also

Concepts

Visual Studio 2012

ASP.NET 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012

Other Resources

Microsoft Web Platform Installer