What's new in ASP.NET 3.5

Posted by: Suprotim Agarwal , on 1/19/2008, in Category ASP.NET
Views: 251768
Abstract: ASP.NET 3.5 has been released with some significant improvements and support for AJAX enabled websites. Along with a few new controls, there is also support for LINQ. In this article, we will explore these new features of ASP.NET 3.5.
What is new in ASP.NET 3.5
 
Microsoft released ASP.NET 3.5 on November 19, 2007. Along with it, was released Visual Studio 2008. This evolution from ASP.NET 2.0 to ASP.NET 3.5 is quiet gradual. ASP.NET 3.5 uses the same engine as that of ASP.NET 2.0, with some extra features added on top of it. In this article, we will explore the new features added to ASP.NET 3.5. This article assumes that you have been working on ASP.NET 2.0.
New Features in ASP.NET 3.5
 
ASP.NET AJAX
In ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET AJAX was used as an extension to it. You had to download the extensions and install it. However in ASP.NET 3.5, ASP.NET AJAX is integrated into the .NET Framework, thereby making the process of building cool user interfaces easier and intuitive.
The integration between webparts and the update panel is much smoother. Another noticeable feature is that you can now add ASP.NET AJAX Control Extenders to the toolbox in VS2008. Even though this is an IDE specific feature, however I feel it deserves a mention over here for developers, who had to add extenders using source view earlier. It is also worth noting that Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) now supports JSON along with other standard protocols like  SOAP, RSS and POX.
New Controls
The ListView and DataPager are new controls added along with a new datasource control called the LinqDataSource.
ListView
The ListView control is quiet flexible and contains features of the Gridview, Datagrid, Repeater and similar list controls available in ASP.NET 2.0. It provides the ability to insert, delete, page (using Data Pager), sort and edit data. However one feature of the ListView control that stands apart, is that it gives you a great amount of flexibility over the markup generated. So you have a complete control on how the data is to be displayed. You can now render your data without using the <table> tag. You also get a rich set of templates with the ListView control.
DataPager
DataPager provides paging support to the ListView control. The best advantage is that you need not have to keep it ‘tied’ with the control on which the paging is being done. You can keep it anywhere on the page.
DataPager gives you a consistent way of paging with the controls that support it. Currently only ListView supports it as it implements the IPageableItemContainer. However support is likely to be added to other List controls as well.
LINQ
LINQ (Language Integrated Query) adds native data querying capability to C# and VB.NET along with the compiler and Intellisense support. LINQ is a component of .NET 3.5. LINQ defines operators that allow you to code your query in a consistent manner over databases, objects and XML.  The ASP.NET LinqDataSource control allows you to use LINQ to filter, order and group data before binding to the List controls.
You can learn more about LINQ over here.
ASP.NET Merge Tool
ASP.NET 3.5 includes a new merge tool (aspnet_merge.exe). This tool lets you combine and manage assemblies created by aspnet_compiler.exe. This tool was available earlier as an add-on.
New Assemblies
The new assemblies that would be of use to ASP.NET 3.5 developers are as follows:
·         System.Core.dll - Includes the implementation for LINQ to Objects
·         System.Data.Linq.dll - Includes the implementation for LINQ to SQL
·         System.Xml.Linq.dll - Includes the implementation for LINQ to XML
·         System.Data.DataSetExtensions.dll - Includes the implementation for LINQ to DataSet
·         System.Web.Extensions.dll: Includes the implementation for ASP.NET AJAX (new enhancements added) and new web controls as explained earlier.
Some Other Important Points
1.    ASP.NET 3.5 provides better support to IIS7. IIS7 and ASP.NET 3.5 modules and handlers support unified configuration.
2.    You can have multiple versions of ASP.NET on the same machine.
3.    For those who are wondering what happened to ASP.NET 3.0, well there isn’t anything called ASP.NET 3.0.
4.    VS 2002 worked with ASP.NET 1.0, VS 2003 worked with ASP.NET 1.1, and VS 2005 worked with ASP.NET 2.0. However VS 2008 supports multi-targeting, i.e it works with ASP.NET 2.0, and ASP.NET 3.5. 
 
For more information, you can browse the following topics:
 
In this article, we took a quick overview of the new features introduced in ASP.NET 3.5. In the upcoming articles(see Related Posts below), we will explore these features in much detail. I hope this article was useful and I thank you for viewing it.
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This article has been editorially reviewed by Suprotim Agarwal.

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Author
Suprotim Agarwal, MCSD, MCAD, MCDBA, MCSE, is the founder of DotNetCurry, DNC Magazine for Developers, SQLServerCurry and DevCurry. He has also authored a couple of books 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls and The Absolutely Awesome jQuery CookBook.

Suprotim received the prestigious Microsoft MVP award for 17 consecutive years, until he resigned from the program in 2025. In a professional capacity, he is the CEO of A2Z Knowledge Visuals Pvt Ltd, a digital group that offers Digital Marketing and Branding services to businesses, both in a start-up and enterprise environment.

Get in touch with him on Twitter @suprotimagarwal or at LinkedIn



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Feedback - Leave us some adulation, criticism and everything in between!
Comment posted by chinmay on Thursday, February 7, 2008 6:50 AM
n/a
Comment posted by sathya on Thursday, March 13, 2008 8:21 AM
Please give the some more details for asp.net 3.5
Comment posted by Nandagopal on Friday, March 28, 2008 1:31 PM
This article very useful as a beginner to asp.net 3.5.
Comment posted by dileep kumar on Monday, May 12, 2008 8:03 AM
This article is good to understand about new features in vs 2008. i am requesting to provide more details about LINQ with examples.
Comment posted by wertwer on Monday, June 16, 2008 9:31 AM
ertyeteryeuyutyuety
Comment posted by Santosh Kumar on Saturday, July 5, 2008 8:20 AM
Hi.
Thanks for giveing the information about new feature in asp.net 3.5. and i request to u please provide more information about LINQ, as well as how can use LINQ plese give me details of LINQ.
Thanks
http://www.operativesystems.com
Comment posted by shoaib.iqbaL on Thursday, July 10, 2008 8:59 AM
it is very important for mE! coz there iz nice stuFF
here
Comment posted by Dharma on Monday, July 14, 2008 6:27 AM
this is good for who are new to know about .net3.5
Comment posted by ricky on Monday, July 28, 2008 7:14 AM
hello ,i need black book for asp.net from where i can download it
Comment posted by Rizwan Nawaz on Monday, September 1, 2008 5:49 AM
hello,its a good welcome for beginners in .net 3.5 ; but i wana know more about LINQ. Please let me know about this more n more :-) Thanks..
Comment posted by amit jha on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 8:10 AM
Greate Note on ASP.Net 2.0 vs. ASP.Net 3.5.
I really say that my all quries/doubts you(your this topic) have solved. Thank a lot dotnetcurry.
Comment posted by MD Zakir Karim Khan on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 12:06 AM
This article is good but if you provide it in more details then reader will learn more and it is good for beginner but hoping you to write article for professional also :)
Comment posted by Suprotim Agarwal on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 4:00 AM
MD Zakir: This article was written almost 10 months ago with the aim of 'introducing' ASP.NET 3.5. Since then we have covered a lot of ground on ASP.NET 3.5, AJAX, Silverlight, LINQ etc.

Please use the Categories section to check out the other articles. Nevertheless, your comments are appreciated.
Comment posted by sdfgsdfgsdfgsdfg on Monday, January 12, 2009 3:50 AM
sdgfsdfg
Comment posted by Benjamin on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 7:58 AM
This article is very useful. Thank you so much
Comment posted by Rajendra on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 7:06 AM
Hi.
Thanks for giveing the information about new feature in asp.net 3.5. and i request to u please provide more information about LINQ.
Regards,
Rajendra.
Comment posted by Suprotim Agarwal on Thursday, January 22, 2009 11:54 AM
Rajendra: LINQ articles can be found here:
http://www.dotnetcurry.com/BrowseArticles.aspx?CatID=62
Comment posted by fad on Wednesday, February 4, 2009 4:33 AM
Small and usefull
Comment posted by damn on Thursday, February 12, 2009 8:11 AM
let me to check out my hands on asp.net3.5..
huh coooooool
Comment posted by Neelam Sharma on Friday, February 13, 2009 1:15 AM
Thanks for giving brief introduction. It's quite informative.
Comment posted by Neelam Sharma on Friday, February 13, 2009 1:32 AM
This article was brief yet informative. Thanks & plz keep posting more articles.
Comment posted by K Rohith Reddy on Friday, February 13, 2009 12:47 PM
I need a small information ,I learned .net2.0 and i was trying for job since 2006 but still know iam unable to get a job.If i learn wwf,wpf,wcf,linq,url diagrams which were introduced in .net 3.0 ,Do i have chance of getting job in those topics
Comment posted by Suprotim Agarwal on Monday, February 16, 2009 7:30 AM
Rohith: Honestly there is no yes and no answer to your question. However learning the technologies mentioned will certainly increase your chances of getting a decent job. Just remember to practice your code as much as you can. The more you practice, the better you get.
Comment posted by harshida on Thursday, April 2, 2009 4:56 AM
please give more details on 3.5
Comment posted by Suprotim Agarwal on Sunday, April 5, 2009 7:15 AM
Harshida: To learn about ASP.NET 3.5 in details, check the other articles over here
http://www.dotnetcurry.com/BrowseArticles.aspx?CatID=54
Comment posted by Arvind Kumar Yadav on Sunday, April 12, 2009 3:50 AM
Good Article.....
Comment posted by Dharmendra Singh on Friday, April 17, 2009 8:35 AM
Nice Article but for new comers... Reaquired more details on all the topics, its just bullet point but every topic in self is huge and need more digging.....
Comment posted by Suprotim Agarwal on Friday, April 17, 2009 10:54 AM
Dharmendra: Thanks for your comment. This article is just an introduction. If you want to learn more about the application, read the following articles over here

http://www.dotnetcurry.com/BrowseArticles.aspx?CatID=54

http://www.dotnetcurry.com/BrowseArticles.aspx?CatID=63

http://www.dotnetcurry.com/BrowseArticles.aspx?CatID=59
Comment posted by subodha kumar barik on Saturday, April 18, 2009 4:23 AM
hi,
what is diff bet  java script & ajax?
Comment posted by Suprotim Agarwal on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 8:55 AM
Subodha: AJAX means Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. So you can't really compare the two as JavaScript is a part of AJAX. In AJAX, JavaScript enables the communication (request/response) with the server without having to reload the whole page.
Comment posted by dsgreen on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:28 AM
Exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
Comment posted by guru on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 9:17 AM
Admirable
Comment posted by Prakash on Friday, June 19, 2009 10:46 AM
its good & informative!!!
Comment posted by M.R.Ganesan on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 5:03 AM
Very usefull information!!!. Thanks
Comment posted by Dhiraj on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 7:32 AM
Its nice but not too much informative.
Comment posted by Daly on Thursday, June 25, 2009 5:33 PM
its clear and informative
Comment posted by Satish on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 1:55 AM
Hi,
Good for those who want to work on .NET 3.5 but i have a little confusion on WCF,WPF.
Can you give the brief idea regarding those.
Comment posted by hmm on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 6:06 AM
hmm
Comment posted by Suprotim Agarwal on Thursday, July 2, 2009 2:16 AM
Satish: These links should help you out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Communication_Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation
Comment posted by Satish on Thursday, July 2, 2009 6:53 AM
Thanx suprotim.
Comment posted by Ravi Kumar on Friday, July 31, 2009 8:54 AM
hi,
this article is very useful and clear about new features in VS3.5. and also clearly explained what is new in VS3.5 when compared to VS2.0. can you please provide some more information about LINQ and LINQ to SQL and LINQ to XML.......

Hope we will be learning new things when we visit this sit next time  
Comment posted by Suprotim Agarwal on Wednesday, August 5, 2009 3:54 AM
Ravi: You can find some articles on LINQ and LINQ to XML here
http://www.dotnetcurry.com/BrowseArticles.aspx?CatID=62
Comment posted by Deepali Kamatkar on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 3:19 AM
Very informative!!
Comment posted by Vimala on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 2:33 AM
very useful and informative
Comment posted by rashmi on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 8:40 AM
this article sums it all up. Thank you
Comment posted by tilak on Monday, October 19, 2009 11:29 AM
I think the article given for the features for .net framework 3.5 was very useful. Thanx..........
Comment posted by balaji patil on Monday, October 26, 2009 7:18 AM
Very usefull information!!!. Thanks
Comment posted by naveen harchand on Friday, October 30, 2009 3:00 PM
thanks to new information
Comment posted by andy on Monday, November 30, 2009 1:16 PM
Excellent Document...
Comment posted by Nageswar on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 1:12 AM
Very useful...and it is basic information for the developer who are migrating from .Net 2.0 to .Net 3.5. Thank you.
Comment posted by Nirav Vyas on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 11:37 AM
I am not sure this is the right place to post this question but I hope it is fine and will have some friutful results from here.

I have a .NET 1.1 application that needs to connect to a custom web
service for authentication and system access. This web service uses a
custom SOAP header for security purposes.

In the past this has been a non issue because I simply registered a
SoapHeaderExtension in the application's App.Config file.

I wanted to be able to register this SoapHeaderExtension
programmatically at runtime.

I found this reference: http://weblogs.asp.net/cweyer/archiv.../07/22929.aspx
which tells how to do it, but this code isn't working for me at all.

Basically in my code I use:

protected void InjectSoapExtensions()
{
Assembly assBase;
Type webServiceConfig;
object currentProp;
PropertyInfo propInfo;
object[] value;
Type myType;
object[] objArray;
object myObj;
FieldInfo myField;

try
{
assBase = typeof(SoapExtensionAttribute).Assembly;

webServiceConfig = assBase.GetType(
"System.Web.Services.Configuration.WebServicesConf iguration");

if (webServiceConfig == null)
{
throw new Exception("Unable to get Web Service Config assembly");
}

*** currentProp =
webServiceConfig.GetProperty("Current").GetValue(n ull, null);
propInfo = webServiceConfig.GetProperty("SoapExtensionTypes") ;
value = (object[])propInfo.GetValue(currentProp, null);
myType = value.GetType().GetElementType();
objArray = (object[])Array.CreateInstance(myType,
(int)value.Length + 1);

Array.Copy(value, objArray, (int)value.Length);

myObj = Activator.CreateInstance(myType);
myField = myType.GetField("Type");

myField.SetValue(myObj, typeof(PediHeaderExtension));
objArray[(int)objArray.Length - 1] = myObj;
propInfo.SetValue(currentProp, objArray, null);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw ex;
}

}

The code fails at the assignment to currentProp because the retrieved
type "webServiceConfig" has no current or SoapExtension properties (in
fact it has NO properties ).

Any ideas? I'm getting pretty desperate here.

Thanks

Frank
Comment posted by prabhakar on Monday, January 11, 2010 1:54 AM
This article is very good and easy to understand about the new features of asp.net3.5
Comment posted by divya on Monday, January 11, 2010 4:29 AM
excellent document
thank u for providing us
Comment posted by k.sai kumar on Monday, January 11, 2010 4:32 AM
very nice
very informative document
thank u so much......
im so happy
bye
Comment posted by Snehal on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 1:12 AM
Article is really very good. Thank you.
Comment posted by kumar manish sinha on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 12:56 AM
i want to know new feature add in asp.net 3.5 and how to worked.
Comment posted by lily on Saturday, June 12, 2010 1:58 PM
That's really good!
Comment posted by Munna on Friday, July 2, 2010 2:06 AM
Thanks for providing information about latest featrue of .net
IT is very usefull for us
Comment posted by vaidehi patel on Thursday, July 29, 2010 2:40 AM
please give me more information about the linq and merge tool.
Thank You
Comment posted by Amit on Thursday, September 2, 2010 8:55 AM
Thanks really good article
Comment posted by vaishali on Monday, September 6, 2010 1:24 AM
That's really good..
Comment posted by chandrika on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 4:16 AM
Thanks ..
Comment posted by Prashant Yadav on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 11:35 AM
Thanks its really very good artical. i m confuse in WVF,WPF plz give me details about that.
Comment posted by ajjja on Tuesday, March 1, 2011 10:42 AM
sdfffffffffffff
Comment posted by sandeep pandey on Sunday, January 8, 2012 9:32 PM
So thanx boss, for providing compact and exact information....
Comment posted by Sreeni on Wednesday, February 1, 2012 10:39 AM
Good
Comment posted by Sreeni on Monday, May 14, 2012 3:31 AM
So thanx boss, for providing compact and exact information.
Comment posted by Guy on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 5:54 PM
This Summary is fabulous I have learned a lot, thanks
One comment -According to you there is not such .net 3.0 framework but according to Microsoft there is http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb822049.aspx
Thanks,
G
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