Worth Noting ----- ASP.NET MVC Preview 4

I blogged earlier regarding MVC new release and I finally tried ASP.NET MVC Preview 4 today at a high level..... still need to dive deep in !

Here are few things worth noting

• ComponentController is removed and now you can use Html.RenderAction<> instead of Html.RenderComponent<> e.g. Html.RenderAction(x=>x.BlogList())
• Html.SubmitButton - is removed and went into a different namespace... Microsoft.Web.Mvc
• MembershipProvider is in built in this preview BUT only the FormsAuthentication is taken care of (and not the FormsAuthenticationAdministration class) so you get automatic creation of all user account classes (login, changepassword, register etc) but the admin functionality is still missing....hoopefully in the next preview we get those !

Here are few links to articles for ASP.NET MVC Preview 4:

• Guru Gu explains here
• Scott Hanselman explains some Ajax features
• Rob Conery gives some insight for ComponentController being deprecated
• Matt again gives some info for using RenderAction
• Some New Finds

***BTW TROY GOODE is releasing a new version of MVC Membership toolkit for Preview 4 tomorrow and next week with some enhancements below:

• 1st Release tomorrow will contain removal of the front-end controller & views (which are now part of the default MVC project template) as well as switching over to the new [Authorize] and [HandleError] attributes.
• The 2nd release next week will focus on improving the administrative interface for managing users using the new MS Ajax goodness.
  

Entity Framework Beta 3 With .NET 3.5 SP1

If anyone has run into issues with the new 3.5 SP1 and ADO.NET EF they know what I'm talking about. The other day I upgraded my system with .NET 3.5 SP1 to run Dynamic Data samples. What I get in return is multiple errors while editing or adding tables to my EDMX file which did not make any sense (one of those wierd non descriptive errors). Finally after lot of "struggle" I could trace the issue.... I had to uninstall my Entity Framework Beta 3 and .NET 3.5 SP1 and then reinstall .NET 3.5 SP1 onto my machine.... not forgetting to restart my machine couple of times.

Bottom Line: Unistall any version of ADO.NET Entity Framework on your box and then install .NET 3.5 SP1 or else you'll see all thos erros I talked earlier


This post will help anyone with similar issues and avoid having them spend half a day on investigating the issue with no clue.

*****BTW Dynamic Data for MVC Preview 4 has been release today and I am testing at this moment... keep checking and I'll keep everyone posted of the new release.

Here ya go ---ASP.NET MVC Preview 4 -- CodePlex

So its finally here.... CodePlex MVC Preview 4 for ASP.NET

I blogged earlier about some new features for MVC release.

Its been released few days earlier than the ASP.NET Team release. I am going to use and test this new preview and blog about the new features and changes:

Includes: Membership Provider, AccountController, Error Handling, Output Cache.

ASP.NET MVC Preview 4

ScottGu finally made it official after a long break (he was busy with his new born)... Preview 4 is relasing end of this week
Its a real good improvement with error filter, authorize filter,AccountController, and caching.

The authorize filter is more like declarative security model which lets you use attributes and filter actions(method) and classes based on your role. AccountController uses built in Asp.Net Membership provider and manage user credentials. You can also use your own custom logic and replace user account class with AccountController class.

Error Filter lets you display a friendly error page/response in case of exceptions.
One can also specify specific exception types like SQLException, NullReferenceException etc.

***ASP.NET Dynamic Data support will be included in MVC by end of Summer ***

Very cool high level features to use with ASP.MVC. The next previews will contain form validation, wizards to automatically create views and test class correspoding to a Controller. WAIT and Keep checking on my blog for upcoming releases.