| Just tell me how to do it! |
| Starting to develop web applications using .NET and Visual Studio is a daunting prospect for developers steeped in classic ASP. When a client required it I was forced to transfer into the brave new world of compiled web applications. I did so knowing it would probably be for the best whilst harbouring a lot of doubts about the flexibility of .NET programming. |
| So I bought all the books and Googled around and found that nowhere is there a simple guide for existing developers who want to make the switch. All the books do the usual thing - they show off, do too much, too quickly or (worst of all) keep refering the reader to other sections later in the book. As always they are written by people who think it their duty to explain EVERYTHING bit by bit. |
| I undersood enough about object oriented programming and had been using classes in practically everything I wrote. What I needed was a quick "big picture" overview of what Visual Studio expected me to do. Like any developer I used a series of standard libraries which I would dutifully plug into any new project. I needed to know how to create a reusable class library for use in any .NET web aplication. |
| Most of all I wanted a short guide which said "Look, at its simplest, this is what you do..". All the rest could follow. |
| So, given that I couldn't find anything, here it is. The only assumtions it makes are: |
- You are a developer who knows how to program using classes
- You understand that .NET uses a file called Web.config to store useful stuff about the site.
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Creating and Publishing a Compiled .NET Web Application |
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| Then, of course, the client wanted reporting - and charting. So what could be more natural than to use Crystal Reports? Once again the web and lots of reference material (including that from Business Objects) was useless. So here's something which does what a developer wants - it populates a Crystal Report from a stored procedure. |
| Using Crystal Reports within Visual Studio 2005 |
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