Active Server Pages: Level 2

Code:

 ZD77-101

Series:

 Computer Professional

Duration:

 2 days
An ASP Guestbook and Simple Chat Application
The World of Active Server Pages and General Development Issues
An ASP Guestbook
An ASP Chatroom

Site Personalization with CSS and ASP
Multiple Style Sheets with ASP
Dynamic Personalized CSS

An ASP Web Poll
Developing a Web Poll
ASP Efficiency and Performance Issues

An ASP Quiz Application
Building a Quiz Application
Grading the Quiz

An ASP Discussion Board
Designing a Discussion Board Application
Creating the Basic Discussion Forum
Displaying a Thread Structure in Outline Format

An ASP Event Calendar
Creating a Calendar
Adding a Database of Events		 Shopping Cart Design and Database Considerations
Planning a Shopping Cart
Database Design Issues
Considerations for the Unique CartID

Product Display and Searching
Working with Product Categories
Product Display and Keyword Searching

The Shopping Cart Script
Building the Shopping Cart
Updating Quantity and Deleting Items
Customer Information, Shipping & Handling, and Taxes

Taking Product Orders
Finalizing an Order
Customer Relations and Further Directions

An Ad Rotation and Tracking System and a Simple Affiliates Program
Creating a Database-Driven Ad Rotator System
Creating Ad Reports
Adding a Web Affiliate Program to your Shopping Cart

Course specification
Course number: 077-101
Course length: 2 days

Course description
Overview:
Active Server Pages 2.0: Level 2 introduces advanced concepts and techniques of ASP programming while building basic ASP applications. It assumes a knowledge of the basics of the ASP, ADO, and Scripting Objects object models–all of which were covered in Level 1. Learning to leverage that knowledge to build actual ASP applications is no easy task, but upon completing this course you should feel comfortable building interesting applications. While working on the various projects of the course you'll be introduced to new aspects of the object models, additional scripting techniques, and numerous performance issues.

Prerequisites:
Active Server Pages 2.0: Level 2 is for the student who is familiar with the essentials of the ASP, ADO, and Scripting Object object models. If you are not at all familiar with the object models mentioned above, you are strongly encouraged to take Active Server Pages 2.0: Level 1, because only brief review notes are provided in this course for the basic concepts. It is also assumed that you have a solid background in other Web development and database technologies including HTML, CSS, client-side scripting, SQL, and basic programming concepts such as objects, properties, methods, and so on. Expertise in the syntaxes of both JavaScript and VBScript is not required. Therefore, only a general knowledge of client-side scripting is required. Before taking this course, you should have completed the following InterSkill course Active Server Pages 2.0: Level 1 (and all of its prerequisites) or have equivalent knowledge.

Delivery method:
Instructor-led, group-paced, classroom-delivery learning model with structured hands-on activities.

Benefits:
Students will learn how to create dynamic, database-driven Web sites. Hands-on tasks follow programming concepts, so that students can immediately implement what they learn. While learning new concepts of ASP and ADO scripting, students will build simple applications.

Target student:
Students should have some familiarity with the ASP, ADO, and Scripting Objects object models used in ASP programming. They should be comfortable with Web scripting in general, though VBScript being the primary language of this course and its syntax is easy to learn. A solid background in HTML and some knowledge of CSS and SQL are also required. The experienced Visual Basic programmer may find this course a little slow, though they will still benefit from it.

What's next:
This course completes the basic series in ASP programming. Future directions for ASP programmers can vary, depending on interests and needs. Your next course might be one on using ASP with Visual Basic and XML; or with SQL Server; or with other advanced technologies; IIS 4.0/5.0 Server Administration; or any other combination of technologies from this family.

Performance-based objectives
Lesson objectives help students become comfortable with the course, and also provide a means to evaluate learning. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • Use the FileSystemObject and TextStream objects along with the Server.MapPath method to construct a guestbook and a simple chat application.
  • Use CSS with ASP to offer visitors the ability to create dynamic stylesheets.
  • Create a database-driven Web poll and learn how to test your ASP scripts for speed and performance.
  • Use the ADO Shape command and hierarchical recordsets to create a simple Quiz, and use the Session object to grade the results.
  • Use Sub procedures to build a discussion board application, and then add a recursive procedure to display message threading.
  • Use VBScript date/time functions, custom Function procedures, and the Recordset object's Filter and Bookmark properties to create a database-driven event calendar.
  • Decide amongst the many options for maintaining user state and how a database can be used in an ASP shopping cart application.
  • Display products by category or keyword searches, using GetRows, GetString, Buffer, Flush, IsClientConnected, and other techniques to improve lengthy results.
  • Build a shopping cart display script, using a database to track the user's contents.
  • Display the final order, create an order invoice for customers to print, and consider the many additional features you might want to add to this course's simple shopping cart.
  • Create a database-driven advertisement rotation and tracking system and add an affiliate-program to your shopping cart.