Introduction

In Chapter 8 we learned how to use Windows forms and controls; now it is time to learn about Web forms and controls. This chapter is not meant to teach you how to develop complete Web applications. It is intended to show you how to use Visual Basic .NET as a development tool for Web applications.

Web forms are a part of ASP.NET that allows you to create programmable Web pages. They integrate HTML with server-side and client-side programming logic. For those of you who have developed ASP Web pages, you know the headaches that arise when you try to ensure that your page works correctly on both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape. Web forms automatically determine the client s browser type and create the correct client-side code for that browser. Web forms also give you a richer set of controls for a better user interface.

Web form controls are server-side controls that provide the user interface as well as programmatic functionality. Web form controls are different from Windows controls in that they are designed to work with ASP.NET. A common and tedious task in Web pages is data validation. Web form controls have built-in data validation capabilities that streamline this task. You will find that Web application development is greatly enhanced, with many more features and capabilities than were previously available.

In order to move to the next phase of the Internet, Web applications need to be distributed across the Internet with different functionalities. Web services