Learn ASP.Net in MVC Style: Part 1 - [Introduction to ASP.Net MVC 5]

1. Extensibility: The components of the ASP.NET MVC framework are designed so that they can be easily replaced or customized. By extensibility, we can swap out the built-in components with other / third party components. For example, the default view engine in ASP.NET MVC to render HTML is Razor but we have the option to use our own view engine for rendering the HTML.
   
2. Test Driven Development (TDD): With ASP.NET MVC, we can easily create unit tests for our application. We can also take individual components and test them in isolation from the entire application. A TDD approach adds an additional layer of defense in our application against unexpected results and errors.
   
3. Separation of Concerns: ASP.NET MVC provides a clean, organized and efficient organization of code. It is very helpful for a web application to scale in terms of functionalities and also promotes good design pattern.
   
4. URL Routing Mechanism: The routing mechanism of ASP.NET MVC is more SEO friendly than Web Forms. URLs do not need to include file-based extensions (.aspx) any more. It has an efficient method based mechanism for routing as compared to a Web Forms file based mechanism.

Release History of ASP.NET MVC

Microsoft has released 5 major releases of ASP.NET MVC prior to the original ASP.NET MVC 1.0. The following table shows the various versions and release history of ASP.NET MVC.

Table 1: ASP.NET MVC History



Creating your first ASP.NET MVC 5 Application

A good way to start learning ASP.NET MVC 5 is to create an application using the framework and becoming familiar with all the necessary steps. Let's create a simple web application using the new Visual Studio Community 2013.

Step 1

Open Visual Studio and create a new project "MVC 5Demo". It is strongly advised to click the "Web" link on the left side of the dialog for the ASP.NET MVC 5 framework. On the bottom right side of the dialog, I've checked the option "Add to Source Control". It is used to add your source code to a Version Control System (commonly TFS or GIT). It is an optional setting and you can leave it unchecked if you want to and click OK.



Step 2

The next dialog window prompts you to chose a template for your web application. Since we are creating a web application using the MVC framework, select MVC. On the bottom left side, there is an option to add Unit tests. It is a recommended approach to add unit tests to your project, however the choice is optional and you can leave it unchecked.



Step 3

On the right side, there is a button saying "Change Authentication" and by default, the selected mode is "Individual User Accounts". It provides the authentication features for your application and there are various modes to chose from. If you click on it, a dialog window appears with several options to choose from. Chose the desired option and click OK.



Step 4

You are almost done with your application. If you've selected the "Add to Source Control" option in the start, a dialog appears to ask you for the source control system for your application. Select the desired option and click OK. This step is optional and only appears if you checked the Add to Source Control option.



Step 5

After all the configurations and settings, Visual Studio creates a project for you and displays the Readme file.



Step 6

Run the project by pressing the F5 button or click Start Debugging on the IDE. Voila, you've created your first web application using the ASP.NET MVC 5 framework.



This application helps you to become familiar with ASP.NET MVC 5. In the next couple of articles in the series, we'll go in deeper and create a web application from scratch using the ASP.NET MVC 5 framework.

To Check the Version of ASP.NET MVC

Until now, we have created a web application and I'm constantly telling you that we are using the latest ASP.NET MVC 5 framework. But, there is no such moment where we have selected the framework version. So the question becomes, how to check the version of ASP.NET MVC framework in your application. There are several options by which we can check the version of ASP.NET MVC framework in our application:

Option 1: Via "Web.config" file

Open the "Web.config" file of your project and search for the <assembly Binding></assembly Binding> tag. Under it, look for the "System.Web.MVC" assembly and check for newVersion that describes the version number of the ASP.NET MVC framework. In the following image, it shows the version as "5.2.2.0". That means the latest ASP.NET MVC 5 framework.



Option 2: Via "packages.config" file

Open the "packages.config" file of your project and look for the package having id="Microsoft.AspNet.MVC". It describes the version of your ASP.NET MVC framework and in the following image, it shows the version as "5.2.2" that means the latest ASP.NET MVC 5 framework.



Option 3: Via "References" folder

Expand the References folder of your project and select the "System.Web.Mvc" assembly. Press F4 for the Properties Window and look for the version. In the following image, it shows the version as "5.2.2.0" that means the latest ASP.NET MVC 5 framework.



Option 4: Via ASP.NET MVC Diagnostics page

There is an explicit method to check the version of ASP.NET MVC 5 framework using the diagnostics page. ASP.NET MVC diagnostics is a simple ASP.NET page created by Brad Wilson, that is used to diagnose issues with an MVC application. To add the diagnostics page into your application, open the NuGet Package Manager from Visual Studio by going to:

Tools => NuGet Package Manager => Manage NuGet Packages for Solution.



Search for "ASP.NET MVC Diagnostics" and install the page.



After the successful installation, an "MvcDiagnostics.aspx" page is added to your MVC application as shown in the following application:



Run the page and it will display all the essential details (including MVC version) about your ASP.NET MVC application.



Option 5: Using the typeof() operator

This is the simple and most commonly used option where we use the typeof() operator to check the version of ASP.NET MVC.

1. typeof(Controller).Assembly.GetName().Version

Example

public string VersionDetails()
{
//To check the MVC version
return "The version of ASP.NET MVC is " + Convert.ToString(typeof(Controller).Assembly.GetName().Version);
}

Conclusion

I hope this article helps you to understand the basics of the ASP.NET MVC 5 framework. In the next articles, we'll dig deep into the world of ASP.NET MVC 5. Your feedback and constructive criticism is always appreciated, keep it coming. Until then, try to put a ding in the Universe!