Introduction to Web
Applications
Web Applications
• Client/server applications accessed with a Web browser over
a network like the Internet or an Intranet
• Web applications have become popular because of the:
⮚platform-independence of Web browsers and Web
document formats
⮚ability to update and maintain Web applications without
distributing and installing software on several client
computers
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Web Application Architecture
✔Web browser layer – allows users to navigate through
Web pages on the Internet
✔ Web server layer – responds to requests submitted by the
Web browsers
✔ Application server layer – used for data processing and
interfacing to the business logic and database server
✔ Business Logic layer – implements business rules
✔ Database server layer – stores and manages data
Introduction to the Web Applications 3
Web Application Architecture…
• Uses Web browsers as the front ends
• Uses the Web to communicate with the Web server
• Uses HTTP as the communication protocol between the Web
browser and the Web server
• Uses HTML/XHTML pages created using, ActiveX, Java
applets, ASP, JSP etc
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Tiered Architectures
Introduction to the Web Applications 5
Web Application Components
• Logical components of
Web Applications
• Physical structure of Web
Applications
Introduction to the Web Applications 6
Examples of Web Applications
• Examples of Web applications include:
• Reservation systems
• Weblogs
• Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)
• Online shopping
• Online auction
• Games
• Multimedia applications
• Calendars
• Maps
• Chat applications
• Clocks
• Interactive design applications
• Stock tickers
• Currency converters
• Data entry/display systems
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Nature of Web Applications
• have features and benefits of desktop applications
• have some form of programmatic control either on the
client side, or on the server, or both
• emphasize on real data separation as opposed to
markup/style separation
• are usually smaller in file size than desktop applications
• can have rich graphical-user interfaces (GUI)
• have reduced client-requirements
• have portable data
Introduction to the Web Applications 8
Building Web Applications
• Two major components needed to build web applications
include:
• Hardware platforms – could be a single shared server
running on a web server and a database
• Software platforms
• Schema – for data storage
• Business rule (logic) – for accessing and modifying
data
• Interactive logic – for presenting data to users
Introduction to the Web Applications 9
ASP.Net
• ASP.NET works with Internet Information Server (IIS) to deliver content in
response to HTTP requests. ASP.NET pages are found in .aspx files
• During ASP.NET processing you have access to all .NET classes, custom
components created in C# or other languages, databases, and so on. In fact,
you have as much power as you would have running a C# application;
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The ASP.NET Code Model
The code-behind file generated for you in the PCSWebApp1
Web site for Default.aspx is initially very sparse. First, you
see the default set of namespace references that you are
likely to use in ASP.NET Web pages:
using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
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ASP.NET Code Model
Below these references you see an almost completely empty partial
class definition for Default_aspx:
public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
}
}
Here the Page_Load()event handler can be used to add any code that
is required when the page is loaded.
Introduction to the Web Applications 12
ASP.NET Server Controls
You can add three types of controls to your ASP.NET pages:
• HTML server controls - These controls mimic HTML elements,
which will be familiar to HTML developers.
• Web server controls - This is a new set of controls, some of
which have the same functionality as HTML controls. These
controls have a common naming scheme for properties and other
elements to ease development, and provide consistency with
analogous Windows Forms controls.
• All Web server controls are used in the following XML element-
type form:
• <asp:controlName runat="server"
attribute="value">Contents</asp:controlName>
• Custom and user controls - These controls are defined by the
developer and can be created in a number of ways.
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