As I'm sure many developers do, I like writing code.
Recognizing a problem and then devising and implementing an elegant solution is exciting.
Tweaking the code, finding more efficient algorithms, and even killing bugs all have their own unique appeal.
The part that holds very little appeal is the dirty work that goes along with development.
If you haven't yet guessed, I'm talking about managing the configuration of your servers and software
in order to get your code to run.
With ASP.NET 2.0 Microsoft has made great strides in increasing developer productivity and
has made implementing previously complex solutions relatively easy, but for some reason it's
always been the little things that impress me. In ASP.NET that thing is the new ASP.NET
administrative tools.
Since ASP.NET 2.0 is still in Beta 1 as I write this, I'm not going to go into too much depth
because I'm sure things will change, but I'll give you lots of pretty pictures to give you
a general idea of what's available. After all... this is a "Sneak Peek".
Internet Services Manager's ASP.NET Tab
Upon installation ASP.NET 2.0 adds an "ASP.NET" tab to the property pages in the
Internet Services Manager. Almost the exact same page appears regardless of the level at which you
select properties... the only exception being that the "Edit machine.config" button is
available from the site nodes, but not from application level nodes.
Of particular interest to some of you should be the "ASP.NET Version" drop down box.
It lets you select what installed version of the .NET Framework your application will run under...
pretty cool huh. This whole side by side deployment thing is pretty nice.
Oh and another cool point... the next three pictures show the "General" tab
of the ASP.NET Configuration Settings at three different levels: the machine level (first),
the site level (second), and the application level (third). Notice how in the first picture the
settings in the "Connection String Manager" section are in normal type, but in the second, the
same settings are italicized. That lets you instantly tell which settings are defined at your current
level and which are inherited from above. Comparing the "App Settings" section of the
second and third pictures illustrates the same point. I added the "MyName" setting at
the site level and as you can see, when viewed from the application level it's italicized to
let you know that it was defined at a higher level.
And if you ever get confused about what level you're currently editing, you can just look at the
bottom of the dialog box and the current path is right there.
Now I know what you're thinking... with all these settings being set via dialog boxes again
we must be back to using the metabase! Nope... the settings are relected in the same web.config
files you've come to know and love. Here's the site level one that was created for that
"MyName" setting I added:
Most of the settings are pretty straight forward but here are screen caps of some of the other tabs for you to
take a look at:
There are a lot of settings on those pages. It sure beats having to make changes to all those
into web.config settings by hand doesn't it? And the best part is, that since all the settings are saved back
to the web.config files, you still have the benefit of the simple XCopy deployment that we've all grown
to love so much. It really is the best of both worlds.
ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool
The other tool I'm going to show you is the ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool. Now to be honest I'm sort of
fuzzy as to whether this is part of ASP.NET or the VS.NET family of products. While everything says ASP.NET,
I don't know how you'd access it without using Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer. I'm sure that'll be addressed
at some point before launch. Help is also not available in this version... at least in mine!
A lot of these settings are the same as the ISM versions, but in some cases these pages are easier to use
then the GUI versions.
And just so you're convinced this isn't all smoke and mirrors, here's that sample application setting
"MyName" that I added from the ISM version of the config tools earlier.
There it is ready and willing to be edited via the HTML version of the tools.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed taking a look at these two great new administrative tools in ASP.NET 2.0 and are looking
forward to them as much as I am. If you'd like to find out more you can always get your own copy of
ASP.NET 2.0 and start playing with them today:
While I've had no real problems with any of the Beta 1 bits, standard disclaimers apply... please don't install
Beta software on anything other then test machines... these are still in the testing phase and there is no support
from anyone if they should somehow toast your server. If you're not ready to scrap your server and start over
from the ground up then you shouldn't install Beta software.
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With the release of ASP.NET 2.0, Microsoft has greatly increased the power of ASP.NET by introducing a suite of new features and functionalities. As part of this release, ASP.NET 2.0 also comes with a host of new special files and folders that are meant to be used to implement a specific functionality. This article examines these new files and folders in detail and provides examples that demonstrate how to utilize them to create ASP.NET 2.0 applications.
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