Professional ASP.NET 3.5 in C# and Visual Basic Part 158 ppt

Figure 34-6 Deploying a Precompiled Web Application In addition to using Visual Studio to copy a Web application from one location to another, it is also possible to use this IDE to depl

Figure 34-5

After being connected to a server, you can copy the contents of your Web application to it by selecting

all or some of the files from the Source Web Site text area After you select these files in the dialog, some

of the movement arrows become enabled Clicking the right-pointing arrow copies the selected files to

the destination server In Figure 34-6 you can see that, indeed, the files have been copied to the remote

destination

If you pull up the same copy dialog later, after working on the files, you see an arrow next to the files

that have been changed in the interim and are, therefore, newer than those on the destination server (see

Figure 34-7)

These arrows enable you to select only the files that must be copied again and nothing more All the

copying actions are recorded in a log file You can view the contents of this log file from the Copy Web

Site dialog by clicking the View Log button at the bottom of the dialog This pulls up the

CopyWeb-Site.logtext file From the copy that you made previously, you can see the transaction that was done

An example log entry is shown here:

Copy from ’C:\Websites\Website1’ to ’Y:\Websites’ started at 10/6/2007 7:52:31 AM

Create folder App_Data in the remote Web site

Copy file Default.aspx from source to remote Web site.

Copy file Default.aspx.cs from source to remote Web site

Copy file Login.aspx from source to remote Web site

Copy file Login.aspx.cs from source to remote Web site

Copy file web.config from source to remote Web site

Copy from ’C:\Websites\Website1’ to ’Y:\Websites’ is finished Completed at 10/6/2007 7:52:33 AM

Figure 34-6

Deploying a Precompiled Web Application

In addition to using Visual Studio to copy a Web application from one location to another, it is also

possible to use this IDE to deploy a precompiled application The process of precompiling a Web appli-cation is explained in Chapter 1 ASP.NET 3.5 includes a precompilation process that allows for a process

referred to as precompilation for deployment.

What happens in the precompilation for deployment process is that each page in the Web application

is built and compiled into a single application DLL and some placeholder files These files can then be

deployed together to another server and run from there The nice thing about this precompilation process

is that it obfuscates your code by placing all page code (as well as the page’s code-behind code) into the

DLL, thereby making it more difficult for your code to be stolen or changed if you select this option in

the compilation process This is an ideal situation when you are deploying applications your customers

are paying for, or applications that you absolutely do not want changed in any manner after deployment

Figure 34-7

Chapter 1 showed you how to use the command-line toolaspnet_compiler.exeto accomplish the task

of precompilation Although this is a great method for precompiling your Web applications and

deploy-ing them to remote servers, you can also use Visual Studio 2008 to accomplish the precompilation and

deployment process

To accomplish this task, open up the project you want to deploy and get the application ready for

deploy-ment by turning off the debugging capabilities as described earlier in the chapter Then pull up the

precompilation and deployment dialog by choosing Build ➪ Publish Web Site in the Visual Studio menu

This opens the Publish Web Site dialog shown in Figure 34-8

Using the Browse ( .) button in this dialog, you can choose any remote location to which you want to

deploy the application As in earlier examples, your options are a file system location, a place in the local

IIS, a location accessed using FTP, or a location accessed via FrontPage Server Extensions

Other options in this dialog include the Allow this precompiled site to be updateable check box When

checked, the site will be compiled and copied without any changes to the.aspxpages This means that

after the precompilation process, you can still make minor changes to the underlying pages and the

application will work and function as normal If this check box is unchecked, all the code from the pages

is stripped out and placed inside a single DLL In this state, the application is not updateable because it

is impossible to update any of the placeholder files from this compilation process

Another option in this dialog is to assign a strong name to the DLL that is created in this process You can

select the appropriate check box and assign a key to use in the signing process The created DLL from the

precompilation will then be a strong-assembly — signed with the key of your choice

When you are ready to deploy, click OK in the dialog and then the open application is built and

published Published means that the application is deployed to the specified location Looking at this

location, you can see that abindirectory has now been added that contains the precompiled DLL, which

is your Web application This is illustrated in Figure 34-9

Figure 34-8

In this state, the code contained in any of the ASP.NET-specific pages is stripped out and placed inside the DLL The files that you see are actually just placeholders that the DLL needs for reference

Building an Installer Program

The final option you should look at is how to use Visual Studio to build an installation program After

the program is constructed, a consumer can run the installation program on a server where it performs a series of steps to install the Web application

Packaging your Web application into an installer program works in many situations For instance, if you sell your Web application, one of the simpler ways for the end user to receive the application is as an

executable that can be run on the computer and installed — all without much effort on his part

The Windows Installer

The Windows Installer service was introduced with Windows 2000, although it is also available in

Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 This service was introduced to make the installation process for your Windows-based applications as easy as possible

You use the Windows Installer technology not only for ASP.NET applications but also for any type of

Windows-based application The Windows Installer service works by creating a set of rules that

determine how the application is to be installed These rules are packaged into a Windows Installer

Package File that uses the.msifile extension

Figure 34-9

The Windows Installer service considers all applications to be made up of three parts:

❑ Products:The large-bucket item being installed, also known as the application itself An

example of this is the ASP.NET Web application

❑ Features:Features are subsets of products Products are made up of one or more features

❑ Components:Components make up features A feature is made up of one or more components

A single component can be utilized by several features in the product

The Windows Installer service is a powerful offering and can be modified in many ways Not only does

the Windows Installer technology detail the product, features, and components of what is to be installed,

but it can also take other programmatic actions or show a sequence of user interfaces as the

installa-tion process proceeds For detailed informainstalla-tion on the Windows Installer, be sure to view the MSDN

documentation on the Windows Installer SDK

With that said, working with the Windows Installer SDK is complicated at best; that was the reason for

the release of the Visual Studio Installer (VSI) as an add-on with Visual Studio 6 This addition made

the steps for building an installer much easier to follow Visual Studio 2008 continues to expand on this capability You have quite a few options for the deployment projects you can build with Visual Studio

2008 Such projects include the following:

❑ Setup Project:This project type allows you to create a standard Windows Installer setup for a

Windows application

❑ Web Setup Project:This is the project type covered in this chapter It’s the type of setup project you use to create an installer for an ASP.NET Web application

❑ Merge Module Project:This project type creates a merge module similar to a cabinet file A

merge module, such as a cabinet file, allows you to package a group of files for distribution but not for installation The idea is that you use a merge module file with other setup programs This project type produces a file type with an extension of.msm

❑ Setup Wizard:This selection actually gives you a wizard to assist you through one of the other defined project types

❑ Cab Project:This project type creates a cabinet file (.cab) that packages a group of files for

distribution It is similar to a merge module file, but the cabinet file is different in that it allows

for installation of the files contained in the package

❑ Smart Device Cab Project:This new project type allows for the creation of a cabinet file that is

installed on a smart device instead of on a typical operating system

Although you have a number of different setup and deployment project types at your disposal, the Web Setup Project is the only one covered in this chapter because it is the project you use to build an installer for an ASP.NET Web application

Actions of the Windows Installer

You might already be thinking that using the Windows Installer architecture for your installation

program seems a lot more complicated than using the methods shown previously in this chapter Yes, it

is a bit more complicated — mainly because of the number of steps required to get the desired result; but

in the end, you are getting a lot more control over how your applications are installed

Using an installer program gives you programmatic logic over how your applications are installed You also gain other advantages, such as:

❑ The capability to check if the NET Framework is installed, as well as which version of the Frame-work is installed

❑ The capability to read or write values to the registry

❑ The capability to collect information from the end user during the installation process

❑ The capability to run scripts

❑ The capability to include such features such as dialogs and splash screens during the installation process

Creating a Basic Installation Program

You can apply a tremendous amount of customization to the installation programs you build Let’s start, however, by looking at how to create a basic installation program for your ASP.NET Web application To

create an installer for your application, first open up the project for which you want to create a

deploy-ment project in Visual Studio The next step is to add an installer program to the solution To do this, you

add the setup program as a new project contained within the same solution Choose File ➪ New ➪ Project

from the Visual Studio menu This launches the New Project dialog

From the New Project dialog, first expand Other Project Types from the left-hand pane in the dialog and

then select Setup and Deployment This provides you with a list of all the available setup and deployment

projects in Visual Studio For our purposes, select Web Setup Project (shown in Figure 34-10)

Figure 34-10

Clicking OK in this dialog adds the Web Setup Project type to your solution It uses the default name of

WebSetup1 Visual Studio also opens up the File System Editor in the document window, which is shown

in Figure 34-11

The File System Editor shows a single folder: the Web Application Folder This is a representation of

what is going to be installed on the target machine The first step is to add the files from the WebSite1

project to this folder You do this by choosing Project ➪ Add ➪ Project Output from the Visual Studio

menu This pulls up the Add Project Output Group dialog This dialog (shown in Figure 34-12) enables

you to select the items you want to include in the installer program

From this dialog, you can see that the project, Wrox, is already selected Highlight the Content Files

option and click OK This adds all the files from the Wrox project to the WebSetup1 installer program

This addition is then represented in the File System Editor as well

Figure 34-11

After the files are added to the installer program, the next step is to click the Launch Conditions Editor button in the Solution Explorer (see Figure 34-13) to open the editor The Launch Conditions Editor is

also displayed in Visual Studio’s document window From this editor, you can see that a couple of

conditions are already defined for you Obviously, for Web applications, it is important that IIS be

installed Logically, one of the defined conditions is that the program must perform a search to see if

IIS is installed before installing the application You should also stipulate that the installation server must have version 3.5 of the NET Framework installed

To establish this condition, right-click the Requirements On Target Machine node Then select Add NET Framework Launch Condition (as shown in Figure 34-14)

This adds the NET Framework requirement to the list of launch conditions required for a successful

installation of the Web application

As a final step, highlight the WebSetup1 program in the Visual Studio Solution Explorer so you can

modify some of the properties that appear in the Properties window For now, you just change some of the self-explanatory properties, but you will review these again later in this chapter For this example,

however, just change the following properties:

❑ Description: This is a test project

❑ Manufacturer: Wrox

❑ SupportPhone: 1-800-555-5555

Figure 34-12

Now the installation program is down to its simplest workable instance Make sure Release is selected

as the active solution configuration in the Visual Studio toolbar; then build the installer program by

choosing Build ➪ Build WebSetup1 from the menu

Looking inC:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\

Wrox\WebSetup1\Release, you find the following files:

❑ Setup.exe: This is the installation program It is meant for machines that do not have the

Win-dows Installer service installed

❑ WebSetup1.msi: This is the installation program for those that have the Windows Installer

ser-vice installed on their machine

That’s it! You now have your ASP.NET Web application wrapped up in an installation program that can

be distributed in any manner you want It can then be run and installed automatically for the end user

Take a quick look in the following section at what happens when the consumer actually fires it up

Figure 34-13

Figure 34-14

Installing the Application

Installing the application is a simple process (as it should be) Double-click theWebSetup1.msifile to

launch the installation program This pulls up the Welcome screen shown in Figure 34-15

From this dialog, you can see that the name of the program being installed isWebSetup1 Clicking Next gives you the screen shown in Figure 34-16