ASP.NET Data Presentation Controls Essentials
Developers just getting their feet wet with ASP.NET may find daunting its
abundance of Web controls. Where is the logical starting point for such a
learning endeavor? I’d suggest a book such as
ASP.NET Data Presentation Controls
Essentials, authored by fellow ASP.NET MVP Joydip Kanjilal.
It’s a great way for C# developers to get introduced to the most powerful and
useful Web controls ASP.NET offers.
This book doesn’t attempt to cover every menial control of ASP.NET — after all,
who really needs a book to figure out the Label control? Instead, the meatier
controls are the focus of this text — and like the title says, they’re all about
presenting data to users. The book starts with the ASP.NET 1.0 Repeater control,
traverses through the data control wonderland of ASP.NET 2.0, and ends its
journey with the two new data controls of ASP.NET 3.5.
The first chapter breaks the ice by covering data binding basics, including the
use and evolution of data binding expressions. It also details the declarative
and programmatic interfaces for the ASP.NET 2.0 data source controls, including
(but not limited to) the Object Data Source and the SQL Data Source controls.
Paging, sorting, and filtering techniques are also disseminated.
The second chapter thoroughly covers the basic list controls of ASP.NET, such as
the ListBox, DropDownList, and CheckBoxList controls. It explains how to bind
them, handle key events, manage their list items, and use them in simple
applications. A comparison of design time declarations vs. dynamic control
instantiation is also presented. One of this chapter’s most valuable assets is a
demonstration showing how to extend the CheckBoxList control with custom
behaviors via object-oriented techniques, like inheritance.
The most feature-rich ASP.NET data controls — like the Repeater, GridView, and
DataList — each have entire chapters dedicated to the exploration of their
intricacies. Editing, sorting, filtering, styling, and event handling tend to be
major topics of discussion for each. Chapter 6 even shows how to
programmatically export the contents of a GridView control to Microsoft Excel or
Word.
Chapter 7 explores the ASP.NET view controls: DetailsView, FormView, and
Treeview, while the final chapter delves in to LINQ and the two new data
controls of ASP.NET 3.5: ListView and DataPager. Drill-down forms and
hierarchical data display techniques will be a breeze after you’ve made it this
far.
At roughly 250 pages, this is a bite-size book that fits nicely within the busy
schedule of modern-day programmers. Its concise explanations are a refreshing
change from the encyclopedia-sized programming references of yesteryear. It
includes plenty of screenshots to help Visual Studio users navigate the maze of
wizards and dialog boxes to reach their desired outcomes. This is an excellent
book for developers new to ASP.NET, and may also be a useful reference for more
experienced developers who’ve found themselves with too little time to learn
these functionally rich controls in as much detail as they would have preferred.
Rating:
ééé
Web Site: http://www.packtpub.com/
Price: US$39.99
ISBN: 978-1-847193-95-7
Author: Joydip Kanjilal
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Page Count: 241
Review Date: Q1 2008
The original version of this review was published in
ASP.NET Pro
Magazine.