Database Management / ASP.NET Controls (Web Forms Controls) / Embarcadero / CodeGear (Tools & Components)

What is ASP.NET? ASP.NET is a part of the Microsoft .NET Framework that enables Web developers to create Web sites and corporate Intranet sites more easily. ASP.NET can be viewed as the next step on from the Microsoft ASP technology where Microsoft first provided Active Server Page (ASP) technology to allow programmers to create Web apps. ASP.NET is a progression from ASP, (initially it was known as ASP+, before being named ASP.NET), in that it is part of the .NET Framework and hence applications built with it are easier to use and maintain, as they are based on the solid .NET Framework component model. For example, one benefit of ASP.NET over ASP is that ASP pages were written in a script or language that was interpreted at run-time, whereas ASP.NET uses compiled code and hence ASP.NET apps generally run faster than ASP based apps. Within ASP.NET there is a screen design and presentation technology, collectively called Web Forms, that ASP.NET developers can use to create user interface screens as Web pages.

What is an ASP.NET control? An ASP.NET control is a reusable .NET software component that can be used by the application user to: enter data, display data, chart data, manipulate data and generally interact and control the ASP.NET application they are using. Examples of ASP.NET controls include ASP.NET datagrids used to enter and/or display data in a grid or datatable format. An extension of this might be an ASP.NET spreadsheet control that would allow you to add full spreadsheet calculation capability to your ASP.NET based Web site. An ASP.NET developer can download and integrate an ASP.NET control as a reusable software component inside his/her to add new functionality fast to their Web site, Intranet, Web app or Web service.

Within the ASP.NET framework there are 3 main ways to implement your your app. You may use Web Forms, a collection of technologies that enable you to create Web pages as Web Forms in a similar manner that you would top client/server or desktop app based WinForms. The Web Forms technology allows you to create menus, screens, data input forms, data visualization screens and data output pages for use on your Web based app. Sometimes programmers refer to ASP.NET controls as Web Forms controls, as ASP.NET controls can be integrated and embedded on a Web Form. See also our ASP.NET AJAX controls page for another type of ASP.NET implementation model that uses the AJAX approach.

There is also the ASP.NET MVC implementation approach for your app - this is more recent and stands for Model View Controller. This is a more recent announcement from Microsoft with a first release in early 2009 and it is currently on ASP.NET MVC 2.0 based on the release made in March, 2010. The Model may be used to represent data by mapping it to data in a database, this data will include information about the application state or status. The Controller controls the change of state or monitors the change of status of the application and may update the data in the Model. The developer can then present Views of this data to the application user. ASP.NET MVC helps programmers logically design their apps based using a structured state machine approach.

In this ASP.NET control product gallery, you will find ASP.NET custom controls that you can use as Web Form controls or as part of your next ASP.NET MVC project. These ASP.NET controls are software components built by experts in their field of study, as such you can not only reuse the software code written by someone else in your app, you can also add their knowledge and expertise to your app to give you more functionality. Why would you waste the time to write a spell checker ASP.NET control for your app, when you can buy one that has been pre-built by experts in spell checking with a variety of language dictionaries immediately available to your users? There are a wide variety of Web Forms controls available, so if you are creating a serious ASP.NET app that may need complex data input or data visualization, you will find lots of useful ASP.NET charting controls, OLAP cubes, ASP.NET gauges, ASP.NET dials etc. to enable you to build great ASP.NET dashboards or ASP.NET BI apps (Business Intelligence applications).

In this filtered view of our main product catalog, you will find a selection of products that are compatible with Embarcadero Technologies products, as well as CodeGear products that were formerly owned by Borland Software. Embarcadero bought CodeGear in June, 2008, CodeGear was previously a division of Borland, making the Borland IDEs known as: Borland Delphi, Borland C++ Builder and Borland JBuilder. These products were sometimes referred to as CodeGear Delphi, CodeGear C++ Builder and CodeGear JBuilder, but are now known as Embarcadero Delphi XE and Embarcadero C++ Builder XE. Plus there is an Embarcadero developer tool suite, consisting of all .NET Embarcadero developer tools known as Embarcadero RAD Studio XE. JBuilder is also available from Embarcadero, along with other Embarcadero database tools.

This Embarcadero product gallery or CodeGear marketplace is full of products that are compatible with the Embarcadero product range, CodeGear tools and Borland dev tools. For Delphi developers there are Delphi components available as CodeGear VCL products, there are CodeGear components and Borland library products that will work with both your old Borland IDE, Borland C++ Builder and the new Embarcadero IDE environments, such as Embarcadero C++ Builder XE. The products here are compatible with CodeGear tools (formerly Borland tools) and can be evaluated by downloading the product trial from the CodeGear download page for each specific CodeGear tool or CodeGear component that you are investigating. You can then evaluate the CodeGear library or CodeGear extension downloaded, read the CodeGear reviews written and posted by other CodeGear developers about it or as a CodeGear developer you could write a CodeGear review yourself.

You will find lots of mature products that are: Borland .Net compatible tools, Borland component products, Borland tools, Borland libraries and many newer or up to date products that are: CodeGear tools, CodeGear component extensions, CodeGear tools or CodeGear libraries. Finally, for the newer and more up to date products, you can read the Embarcadero News pages, that highlight the Embarcadero product news every time a new Embarcadero compatible product is released. This Embarcadero News feed is also available as an Embarcadero News RSS data feed for you to subscribe to, so that you can keep up to date with all the latest Embarcadero product news.