Webhosting question (re: SQL/ASP/Frontpage Extensions/et cetera)

Drez

So I am trying to get back into programming, and I'm teaching myself Visual C# and ASP.NET 3.5. Right now, all I have is Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition and SQL 2008 Server Express (with Management Tools, etc.).

From what I gathered, to build a real website with ASP.NET, your server needs to support Frontpage Extensions, but now I'm reading something else that makes me believe differently - that you need Frontpage Extensions to REMOTELY alter your ASP.NET site. Which implies that I can build my site in SQL and ASP.NET/C# whether my host supports it or not.

My webhost, I'm fairly certain, does not have Frontpage Extensions.

Can someone fill me in here?

My webhost states it supports Perl, PHP, and MySQL. But Perl and PHP are interpreted languages, while C#/ASP is pre-compiled or something, right?

I dunno, can someone fill me in here, please?

MKR

http://www.google.com/search?q=front+page+extensions

I haven't even thought about front page in about a decade, so most of what I knew of them went poof. I think it's just a way to let Front Page edit a site directly on the server.

wmelon

If your webhost states that it doesn't support C#/ASP.Net then it won't work on their servers. What you do need to run an ASP.Net site is a server with IIS and the .Net framework installed on it. Currently those are only available on Windows based servers. It sounds like your host has linux or unix based servers from what they support.

Drez

Thank you.

MKR: "Frontpage Extensions" doesn't have anything to do with the editor AFAIK, I think it's just an offshoot of their Frontpage Publisher. From what I understand, Frontpage Extensions lets you edit your site and server remotely from Web Developer Studio 2008 (which is a far cry from shitty Frontpage).

flatlinegraphics

frontpage extensions were more like preinstalled scripts on the server. like hitcounters and things that were awesome in the late 90s. pretty much dead, as far as i know, as frontpage is dead. replaced by visual web dev express and expression web.

asp and .net are not necessarily precompiled, tho they can use precompiled code. and your server needs to be a windows server using IIS and have the .net framework installed. your current server is almost certainly a LAMP server, and completely incompatilble with .net.

Drez

flatlinegraphics wrote: »

frontpage extensions were more like preinstalled scripts on the server. like hitcounters and things that were awesome in the late 90s. pretty much dead, as far as i know, as frontpage is dead. replaced by visual web dev express and expression web.

asp and .net are not necessarily precompiled, tho they can use precompiled code. and your server needs to be a windows server using IIS and have the .net framework installed. your current server is almost certainly a LAMP server, and completely incompatilble with .net.

Yes, I believe that's what they were in the 90s, but after looking into it more "Frontpage Extensions" need to be installed on the server for you to remotely edit an ASP.NET site. So it looks like they dropped that nonsense and use it for remote Web Developer stuff now.

Or at least that's what Web Developer 2008 implies when I try to connect to my current server: "Frontpage Extensions not found...blah blah blah."

What is Expression Web?

While this is open, can anyone link me to a good site that explains the fundamentals of connecting to a local SQL database with Visual C# (NOT Web Developer)?

I'm fairly proficient with Access and ADO and VBA, which I want to get away from now. So I'm trying to jump headfirst into using SQL Management Tools. I have a simple database with a few tables titled Game01, but I'm having trouble understanding how to open a connection using Visual C#.

I guess my primary confusion stems from understanding (a) how SQL works on my local machine:

- I have SQL 2008 Server Express installed on this machine I am typing from
- My Visual C# 2008 project (a Web Forms application) is on this machine I am typing from
- I know I have SQL Express Server and SQL Express Server Compact 3.5 both installed correctly
- My SQL server uses Windows Authentication
- My SQL server has TCP/IP enabled

The "services" part confuses me. Sometimes I can open up a connection (manually) to my mdf (database) file and view the objects (tables, views) from C# and sometimes it fails.

Right now I'm just trying to run the simplest query ("SELECT * FROM difficulty_list", for instance) against this, and trying to either write the data from each field in the first record to a debug line, or a text box, or a messagebox, or whatever.

But my code is failing when I try to open the connection. I'm not sure I understand how to open a connection to a local SQL database. This is what I was trying:

SqlConnection myConnection = new SqlConnection("user id=username;password=password;server=localhost;Trusted_Connection=yes;database=Game01;connection timeout=30");

There is no username/password, but from what I understand, that is bypassed if you flag Trusted_Connection to "yes".

Sorry, I know that's a lot. Any help would be appreciated.

Drez

Nevermind, I figured my connection string out.

This can be locked.

Thanks, all.

flatlinegraphics

just a point before the lock:
expression web is sort of like a msft version of adobe creative suite, subbing in silverlight for flash.
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=web
no real experience with it, other than it exists.

Drez

Ah, thanks.

And getting my connection string, was easy. It actually gives you the string when you add the data source in the project environment. I just didn't see it. I guess I just need to learn more about the IDE.