Changing to ASP.net

[Plastic Box]

OK I've been writing in traditional ASP VB Script for the last 6 years and know it pretty well now.

3 years ago I tried making the move to ASP.net and gave up pretty quickly as I had a lot of work on and didn't have time to learn it.

I also tried making the move a few months ago, and again gave up!

I've since learnt CSS properly, and now that I have made a complete move away from table based layouts, I'd like to finally make the move to ASP.net.

I use Dreamweaver CS3 for all my development work, and make a lot of use of the extensions, especially the Adobe Developer Toolkit.

One thing that stops me every time is the ability to "log in user" - a nice easy process in ASP VBscript with the button in Dreamweaver, but I can't find how to do that in ASP.net.

So what I'm looking for is firstly how to get user authentication sorted easily so that I can impliment it quickly, and also a good ASP.net book that deals mainly with using Dreamweaver. I have a few ASP.net books, but they focus too much on the hand coding side of it.

Many thanks for your help!

[Ben Collier]

I know it won't be much help to you, but using ASP.net with Expression Web and Visual Studio (even express) seems a winning combination!

ASP.net has a lovely login control, and once you're used to setting up the databases makes it a dream :D

Good luck!

[screwsoft]

I agree with Ben, asp.net using VS2005 makes a login control almost as simple as dragging and droppping a control onto your web page.

[Plastic Box]

So design it in Dreamweaver, then move over the Visual Studio for the dynamic stuff?

[siphilp]

VS 2005 is such a great improvement over VS 2003 in terms of css support. You will probably find that eventually dreamweaver will be a thing of the past as you get more comfortable using a VS IDE.

I would like to iterate that it would be a good idea to look at best practices before jumping right in the deepend. Also you will find that there are alot of good Data Access Layer blocks(free) that will take some of the sting away from writing your own DALC.

I think it's a good move :D

[Ben Collier]

I was fiddling with the Visual Web Developer Express 2008 beta 2 and they seem to have really focused on the design side for pages!

Best of all it's free!