Professional C# 2012 and .NET 4.5

Chapter 42

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Creating Dynamic Data Web Applications
• Customizing Scaffolding
• Customizing Templates
• Configuring Routing for Dynamic Data

WROX.COM CODE DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

You can find the wrox.com code downloads for this chapter at http://www.wrox.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=1118314425 on the Download Code tab. The code for this chapter is contains this major examples covering all aspects of the chapter:

• Dynamic Data Sample

OVERVIEW

In the previous three chapters, you learned about how to use ASP.NET to create web applications and how to add advanced functionality to streamline those. In this chapter, you look at a framework that includes best-practice techniques to make data-driven web applications easy to create.

ASP.NET Dynamic Data enables you to build a website from preexisting data that you have in a database. The wizards that Visual Studio supplies make it possible to generate dynamic data websites quickly, which you can then customize to get the look and feel you want. Advanced template capabilities are included in dynamic data websites so that you can get up and running quickly. Dynamic data isn’t suitable for all types of websites, but for many types — including e-commerce sites and data manipulation sites — it provides a perfect starting point for development.

If you think about data-driven websites (which these days includes most websites), you probably realize that a lot of their functionality is very similar. Such a website ...