ASP.NET: Webforms and MVC pattern

asp.netasp.net-mvc

I have developed a webapplication in both ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Webforms and i'm wondering isn't Webforms following the rules of the MVC Pattern just the as ASP.NET MVC is?

I mean we have the .aspx file which holds the visual (HTML and JavaScript) and then the code behind file which controls the user interaction and data for the .aspx file. Then we could make a Repository lager for fetching and doing stuff with data.

Isn't this the same as following the rules of the MVC Pattern? View for visual, Controller for controlling user interaction and data for the Views and the Model fetching and doing stuff with data?

I know ASP.NET MVC and Webforms handles Postbacks and URL handeling differently, but im not comparing the two ASP.NET techniques, but the MVC Pattern in generele for the two techniques.

Best Answer

ASP.NET Webforms is definitely not following the MVC pattern.

In MVC you have three elements, the Model, the View, and the Controller.

In ASP.NET Webforms, you have your Page (codebehind and the markup are compiled into a single object, not seperate), and whatever data is being shown. You really have no controller. You make a requrest directly to the page rather than a controller and the page is responsible for both working with the data and rendering the page. Definitely not seperated like MVC would be.

Related Solutions

Asp.net-mvc – Compile Views in ASP.NET MVC

From the readme word doc for RC1 (not indexed by google)

ASP.NET Compiler Post-Build Step

Currently, errors within a view file are not detected until run time. To let you detect these errors at compile time, ASP.NET MVC projects now include an MvcBuildViews property, which is disabled by default. To enable this property, open the project file and set the MvcBuildViews property to true, as shown in the following example:

<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
  </PropertyGroup>

Note Enabling this feature adds some overhead to the build time.

You can update projects that were created with previous releases of MVC to include build-time validation of views by performing the following steps:

Open the project file in a text editor.
Add the following element under the top-most <PropertyGroup> element: <MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
At the end of the project file, uncomment the <Target Name="AfterBuild"> element and modify it to match the following:

<Target Name="AfterBuild" Condition="'$(MvcBuildViews)'=='true'">
    <AspNetCompiler VirtualPath="temp" PhysicalPath="$(ProjectDir)\..\$(ProjectName)" />
</Target>

C# – How to create a dropdownlist from an enum in ASP.NET MVC

For MVC v5.1 use Html.EnumDropDownListFor

@Html.EnumDropDownListFor(
    x => x.YourEnumField,
    "Select My Type", 
    new { @class = "form-control" })

For MVC v5 use EnumHelper

@Html.DropDownList("MyType", 
   EnumHelper.GetSelectList(typeof(MyType)) , 
   "Select My Type", 
   new { @class = "form-control" })

For MVC 5 and lower

I rolled Rune's answer into an extension method:

namespace MyApp.Common
{
    public static class MyExtensions{
        public static SelectList ToSelectList<TEnum>(this TEnum enumObj)
            where TEnum : struct, IComparable, IFormattable, IConvertible
        {
            var values = from TEnum e in Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum))
                select new { Id = e, Name = e.ToString() };
            return new SelectList(values, "Id", "Name", enumObj);
        }
    }
}

This allows you to write:

ViewData["taskStatus"] = task.Status.ToSelectList();

by using MyApp.Common