Tips on getting your ASP.NET Dynamic Data questions answered quickly

When you run into an issue or have a question about ASP.NET Dynamic Data, the best place for it is the Dynamic Data Forum. When you write your question, there are a few simple things that you can do to make it easier for the ‘experts’ to answer (and hence to get an answer quicker!).

1. Mention what ORM framework you are using
Out of the box, Dynamic Data supports LINQ To SQL and Entity Framework. While they seem similar on the surface, they are actually fairly different once you get a little deeper into the API. Just mention which one you’re using and you’ll save a roundtrip.

2. Mention what release you’re using
The official release of Dynamic Data is the one that comes with .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (or Visual Studio 2008 SP1). There are also various preview bits and samples that you can download from Codeplex. Just mention exactly what you are using. If you’re using some preview bits, you can include a link to them to them to remove any ambiguity.

3. When possible, report issues using a standard database
Obviously, we don’t expect you to use Northwind or Adventure Works in your real project. But when you run into an issue with your custom schema, you should always check whether you are able to see the same thing with the standard DBs. Those DBs have schemas which contain many of the common patterns that you may be using. e.g. For One to Many relationship, you Northwind’s Product/Category, and for Many To Many, use Employees/Territories.

There are a few reasons why doing this is preferred. First, most readers are familiar with those schemas, so they can make sense of the situation quicker without having to analyze a custom schema. It also makes it a lot easier for people to try to reproduce the issue you’re seeing, since everyone has those sample databases. And finally, if the issue calls for a sample that demonstrates a workaround, using the standard DB, makes it much more useful to everyone else who runs into it.

Clearly, there are some situation where your custom schema is just different and using the standard DBs will not work. In those cases, just try to precisely describe your schema. Including a diagram can help too. In a nutshell, make sure that a reader not familiar with your database will understand enough of it to make sense of your question.

4. Try to isolate the issue
If an issue you see in a complex scenario can also be seen in a simpler scenario, it is always better to report it on the simpler scenario. It makes the question shorter and easier to read, as it keeps it focused on the essential.

5. Disable AJAX partial rendering
If you’re getting Javascript errors, the first thing you should try to to disable AJAX partial rendering. Please see this post for more details on this.

6. Include complete stack traces
If you’re getting an error in the browser, make sure you include the full stack trace that you see in there, and not just the text of the error. Looking through a stack trace can reveal some important clues about the issue.

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Building a Web 2.0 Portal with ASP.NET 3.5

If you think you're well versed in ASP.NET, think again. This exceptional guide gives you a master class in site building with ASP.NET 3.5 and other cutting-edge Microsoft technologies. You learn how to develop rock-solid web portal applications that can withstand millions of hits every day while surviving scalability and security pressures -- not just for mass-consumer homepages, but also for dashboards that deliver powerful content aggregation for enterprises. Written by Omar AL Zabir, co-founder and CTO of Pageflakes, Building a Web 2.0 Portal with ASP.NET 3.5 demonstrates how to develop portals similar to My Yahoo!, iGoogle, and Pageflakes using ASP.NET 3.5, ASP.NET AJAX, Windows Workflow Foundation, LINQ and .NET 3.5. Through the course of the book, AL Zabir builds an open source Ajax-enabled portal prototype (available online at "www.dropthings.com"), and walks you though the design and architectural challenges, advanced Ajax concepts, performance optimization techniques, and server-side scalability problems involved.

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The System.Xml namespace contains the XmlDocument Class .we can use this class to operate xml file.

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Flex development framework

Flex is a highly productive, free open source framework for building and maintaining expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems. While Flex applications can be built using only the free Flex SDK developers can use Adobe Flex Builder3 software to dramatically accelerate development.

Flex overview

Flex is a free, open source framework for building highly interactive, expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems. It provides a modern, standards-based language and programming model that supports common design patterns.

MXML, a declarative XML-based language, is used to describe UI layout and behaviors, and Action Script 3, a powerful object-oriented programming language, is used to create client logic. Flex also includes a rich component library with more than 100 proven, extensible UI components for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs), as well as an interactive Flex application debugger.

RIAs created with Flex can run in the browser using Adobe Flash Player software or on the desktop on Adobe AIR, the cross-operating system runtime. This enables Flex applications to run consistently across all major browsers and on the desktop. And using AIR, Flex applications can now access local data and system resources on the desktop. Both Flash Player and Adobe AIR are available as a free download on Adobe.com.

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Introducing the ASP.NET MVC framework

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The center and most important controller component takes the responsibility of locating the appropriate action method in the controller, obtaining data to use as the action method's arguments, and handling any errors that might occur when the action method runs. Then, the controller renders the requested view. Figure 1 gives a rough perspective of the way ASP.NET MVC works.

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