February 2008
Intermediate to advanced
428 pages
8h 52m
English
Content preview from ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies®
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Chapter 2. Getting Up and Running
In This Chapter
Installing Visual Web Developer Express
Setting up the development environment
Managing the Toolbox
Using Solution Explorer and the Properties window
Technically, you don't need Visual Web Developer Express to create Web pages for ASP.NET. All the source and configuration files are text-based combinations of HTML, XML, and computer code. You could just fire up Notepad and start typing, although, it would take days to create anything worthwhile.
In reality, you need an integrated development environment (IDE) to automate the creation of files, generate the code, organize the content, and keep all the tools in one place.
This chapter brings you up to speed on Visual Web Developer Express as the design environment for ASP.NET pages. This chapter doesn't cover everything the IDE can accomplish for you because you're itching to build pages. When you understand the basics, you can get a grip on the rest of tools in subsequent chapters.