NGWS SDK Documentation  

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Introduction to Web Forms

Web Forms are an ASP+ technology that you use to create programmable Web pages. They can present information, using any markup language, to the user in any browser and use code on the server to implement application logic.

Web Forms:

Components of Web Forms

Web Forms divide the Web applications user interface into two pieces: the visual component and the user interface logic. If you have worked with rapid application deployment tools, like Microsoft® Visual Basic® and Microsoft® Visual C, in the past, you will recognize this distinction between the visible portion of a form and the code that interacts with the form.

The user interface for Web Forms pages consists of a file containing markup and Web-Forms–specific elements. This file is referred to as the page. The page works as a container for the text and controls you want to display. Using any HTML editor plus Web Forms Server Controls, you can lay out the form as you like. The page is a file with the extension ".aspx."

User interface logic for the Web form consists of code that you create to interact with the form. You can choose that the programming logic reside in the .aspx file, or in a separate file (referred to as the "code-behind" file), written in Visual Basic or C#. When you run the form, the code-behind class file runs and dynamically produces the output for your page.

For more details about how Web Forms are constructed, see Web Forms Code Model.

What Web Forms Help You Accomplish

Web application programming presents challenges that do not typically arise when programming traditional client-based applications. Among the challenges are these:

Meeting these challenges for Web applications can require substantial time and effort. Web Forms address these challenges in the following ways:

See Also

Creating ASP+ Web Applications