Julie Lerman's DevLife

ASP.NET 2.0 Challenge: How many new ASP.NET 2.0 features can you incorporate into one site?

Last summer, I had planned to use June to rewrite the Vermont.NET website in ASP.NET 2.0. But then came a project that I don't like to talk about any more. (Really, it's not the technology I dislike, just that it ate my summer and I'm still holding the grudge.) So I am finally doing the VTdotNET site now. I have spent 3 years playing with .NET 2.0, but focused on the backend, the lower tier, the BCL, etc, and not the UI stuff.

Now that I'm doing this site, I wanted to try to get my hands on as many of the new key ASP.NET 2.0 toys as I can.

Here's some of what's already incorporated in this site (with links to how you can learn more about each technology)

• Master pages
• Membership and Personalization (with custom membership and role providers to use my own db)
• Web Parts
• Lots of CSS including using the new CSS Friendly Control Adapters.
• SiteMapNavigation including custom providers
• RSS Toolkit Controls
• Using a Web Application Project (and importing pges and controls from the old site)

I'm still fiddling with it. Actual design (how it looks) is the hardest part for me.

I hope to make this live within the week and will come back to this post to make note of it.

Throughout the site, I have placed little question mark icons which the user can hover over to get a popup explaining what new ASP.NET 2.0 technology is being used.

This is done from a combination of javascript and css that I was able to get started with thanks to this Code Project article.

posted on Monday, May 08, 2006 10:34 AM