Member Avatar for Fortinbra

I've done my own research on the subject, but I want to see what others think.

I have a web application (intranet) that is currently written in ASP.NET 2.0. We're needing to update the UI so that we have more freedoms with it. (We are currently in the 10th circle of Table Hell). We are going to change from table based layouts to semantic layouts using CSS. Are there any new features, or any other benefits from using ASP.NET4.0 as opposed to 2.0 when targeting XHTML standards compliance for cross browser support?

  • 3 Contributors
  • 6 Replies
  • 191 Views
  • 1 Month Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by Fortinbra

Dani AI

Generated

Short, practical summary for the upgrade and the tableless move (building on and ):

Upgrading to ASP.NET 4 helps, but it’s a tool — not an automatic fix. ASP.NET 4 adds two very useful knobs for WebForms that make semantic markup and smaller payloads achievable: client-side ID control (so your selectors and scripts are predictable) and a finer-grained ViewState switch (so you stop shipping unnecessary state). At the same time, ASP.NET 4 changed some server-control rendering and XHTML behavior, so verify rendering settings during the migration. ASP.NET 4 overview / breaking changes and xhtmlConformance guidance are good references.

Concrete bits you can apply immediately:

<%@ Page Language="C#" ClientIDMode="Static" ViewStateMode="Disabled" %>

<asp:TextBox ID="txtName" runat="server" ClientIDMode="Static" ViewStateMode="Enabled" />

Or set app-wide defaults in web.config:

<system.web>
  <pages clientIDMode="AutoID" controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion="3.5" />
</system.web>

(Adjust those values to match whether you want legacy rendering or the newer XHTML-friendly output.) See the ASP.NET docs on client IDs and view state for details and caveats.

Beyond those framework knobs, focus on network-level fixes: remove broad UpdatePanels (they still cause the page lifecycle to run and can keep ViewState traffic—use small partial callbacks or PageMethods/JSON endpoints instead), enable HTTP compression on IIS, minify and bundle your CSS/JS, optimize images, and serve common libraries from CDNs. Use browser DevTools and a proxy like Fiddler to measure before/after changes. Microsoft’s AJAX docs, IIS compression docs, bundling/minification guidance, Chrome DevTools and Fiddler docs explain these tactics in depth: partial updates caveats, IIS compression, bundling guidance, Chrome DevTools and Fiddler.

If the primary goal is predictable markup and a smaller payload, plan a two-step approach: migrate the app to .NET 4 to get the control features, and concurrently refactor pages to remove ViewState-heavy controls and UpdatePanels while introducing focused AJAX endpoints and asset optimization.

Recommended Answers

All 6 Replies

Member Avatar for Member #905211

The only major difference that I remember between the 2 as far as layout is concerned is instead of letting .Net create the IDs of elements you can specify your own scheme as well as adding less code. Your main issues going to a tableless layout isn't .Net, it's doing the CSS properly.

Member Avatar for Fortinbra

The reason behind the tableless layout is to reduce bandwidth usage for the application. Right now we have pages that are comming across as 4 and 5 MB downloads for single pages. I aim to reduce that to a max of a 1MB download. Having more fine tuned control over control rendering, and being able to specify ID's on controls is exactly how I planned on taking advantage of .NET 4 for my tableless upgrade.

Member Avatar for Member #905211

Another thing you can look at is reduce the ViewState (this can easily be 1-2MB) and using more PageMethods and ajax (Don't use UpdatePanels, they still send the entire request back and forth and can serious screw with other JavaScript on the page).

Member Avatar for Fortinbra

I think the Update Panels are part of our problem. We are currently running into huge problems in IE9, and our product is built for IE. We'd like to break away, and allow our users to use any browser they want, as long as they don't need key features that require IE (activeX controls, which we only have 1 of)

Member Avatar for maninaction

2.0 Vs 4.0 Which is more Applicable.....

Member Avatar for Fortinbra

Answering this question from inside our office.... We're converting to ASP.NET 4, but we're not changing the GUI just yet.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.