What is ASP.NET MVC
A framework that maps requests onto controller classes and methods
Razor and WebForms view engines for rendering HTML templates
extensible, customizable and designed with testing in mind
System.Web
System.Web.Routing
System.Web.Mvc
ASP.NET MVC 1.0 - 2009 Mar 13
ASP.NET MVC 2.0 - 2010 Mar 10
ASP.NET MVC 3.0 - 2011 Jan 13
ASP.NET MVC 4.0 - 2012 Aug 15
MVC is open source
Microsoft Public License (MS-PL)
Pull requests accepted
MVC code is available for browsing/debugging/modification/redistribution
At http://aspnet.codeplex.com/
WHY MVC?
instead of web forms
Lack of control over rendered markup
many server controls generate ugly HTML
client side CSS and JavaScript sometimes cumbersome
Lack of modularity
pages contain input processing and rendering logic
pages sometimes even contain data access logic
Lack of control over runtime environment dependencies
applications are difficult to test without live web server
Lack of control over incoming URLs
Model View Controller
MVC steers you in the "correct" direction.
It makes it hard to put code in the "wrong" place
Controller handles the incoming request
Controller "returns" a View (View Engine generated)
Controller likely uses a Model when returning the view
Model usually is the "data context" for the View
MVP vs MVC
MVC Components
Controller is the brains
accesses model
chooses response or view
same as WebForms (but more explicit)
no data access layer calls in pages
only contains rendering logic
passed model/data from controller
receives requests, processes all input
Model is business data
View emits response
WEB API
This is just a different type Controller that is optimized for exchanging data as opposed to Views
Inherits from ApiController
Creates a new Route in the Route Table
(usually /api/controllerName)
Web API cont..
Controller methods should return data not Views
Controller following standard REST conventions
Support default content negotiation. Respects accept header with valid content-type responses
Advanced asp.net
Model Binding
Filters
Areas
Bundles
Nested Layouts
Partial Views
model binding
Model is passed to the View from the Controller
Your Model is typically a strongly typed C# Object
In the Controller: return View(InstanceOfModel);
In the View: @model ModelType
<h2> @Model.Property </h2>
The Model object is bound to the view and accessible to the Razor Template Engine.
model binding cont..
Can create "ViewModels".
These are Model objects that are specifically tied to the View.
Rather than returning your Entity directly you return a flattened object that is designed for that specific view.
bundles
New to ASP.NET MVC4
Gives you a way to group like files into a single "bundle" for use on your page.
Automatically minifies or uses minified version when debug=false in web.config (or EnableOptimizations is true)
Can specify a CDN path for release and local copy of debug
Can use wildcards.
Action Filters
Additional way to manage access to a controller method.
Often used to require login, require ssl, etc..
Place the attribute above the Action or the whole controller
eg: [Authorize]
Can create your own custom filters eg: [RequireMyCustomCookie]
areas
Gives you a way to break up complicated sites in to smaller functional "areas"
Subfolder structure to hold Controllers, Views, Registration etc.. for the Area.
Call AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas() to "bootstrap" the areas into the global handler
Routes handled by the area itself.
Right Click | Add New Area | Scaffolding adds stub code