The purpose of this page is to make a list of common concepts. ASP.NET is Microsoft’s server side scripting technology that integrates with the .NET framework.
AJAX
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML allows web applications to communicate asynchronously with web servers which results in smoother user interfaces.
ASP.NET AJAX
A JavaScript Library
Codebehind
Codebehind refers to a technique where the markup and the programming code (C#) is separated in two files but gets compiled as one instruction set. There are two approaches to using C# (or any other language) in ASP.NET, codebehind or in-line. Codebehind just seems to offer a cleaner approach. Codebehind pages, for example, are named default.aspx.cs where default.aspx is the page that contains the HTML markup.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Cascading Style Sheets are used to add formatting and display rules to XHTML markup.
JavaScript
A client-side (browser) scripting language.
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
A lightweight computer data interchange format.
jQuery
A JavaScript library.
Postback
Each time an event occurs that requires something from the web server a postback occurs. If a user clicks on a button then a postback occurs, and the server needs to process the action and resend information to the client.
RPC – Remote Procedure Calls
Remote Procedure Calls allow you to call functions/procedures on remote computers.
Server Controls
Server Controls can best be described as blocks of code that execute on the server. Each server control has specific HTML markup that gets generated by the server. The markup varies based on the function that the server control performs.
SkinFile
A skin file is used to declare the look and feel of ASP.NET server controls. A skin file will contain a server control’s declaration without an ID. You can then apply a standardised look and feel to each server control. If for example you wanted all your Gridview controls to look the same then you would stylise a Gridview in the SkinFile. Each item declared in the skinfile will have a SkinID which you then associate to the control.
SOAP
Simple Object Access Protocol is a standard internet protocol for exchanging structured information in a distributed environment.
Themes
Each ASP.NET web application has a specific folder structure and one of those folders is called Themes. The Theme folder allows you to create a number of themes. Each theme consists of various CSS files and a skin file. The CSS files are used to style your HTML and the skin files are used to style your server controls.
Universal Description, Discovery and Integration
A directory model for web services
Viewstate
Viewstate is the process of ensuring that the information on a webpage is kept in tact between postbacks. In other words if a user clicks a button and a label on a page changes its value then viewstate ensures that the label retains its value(s).
Web Service
A web service uses XML to transport data across the internet using open standards such as SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI
Web Services Description Language
A standard internet protocol that is used to describe XML.
XHTML: eXstensible Hypertext Markup Language
A markup language used in specifically formatted documents. These documents can be hosted on web servers. People open these documents with a browser, which interprets the markup and displays the information as specified in the markup. The markup follows certain rules (standards) that govern the type of markup that can be used in the browser.
