ASP.NET 2.0 Wizard Control

One of the useful new controls in ASP.NET 2.0 is the <asp:wizard> control, which allows developers to easily create multi-step UI (with built-in previous/next functionality and state management of values).

There is a nice 14 minute online video now available that walks through how to build an ASP.NET 2.0 application from scratch that provides a customer online signup form system using the <asp:wizard> control, the asp.net validation controls, and the new System.Net.Mail mail library. You can watch it being built from scratch and learn the high-level concepts of how the Wizard control works here (to find other short task-focused videos in the new ASP.NET 2.0 "How Do I" series click here).

Here are a few other articles you can read to learn more about the <asp:wizard> control and how to take advantage of it:

* MSDN Magazine Cutting Edge Article (note: this is a little old -- but provides a good conceptual overview)
* ASP.NET QuickStart Samples for the Wizard Control
* Create a Basic Wizard Control
* Create an Advanced Wizard Control
* Wizard Control MSDN Reference Overview

One nice tip/trick you can use with the Wizard control is to host it within the new <atlas:updatepanel> control -- which turns the wizard into an Ajax based wizard (no full page post-backs required). This is trivial to-do and doesn't require any code changes. This blog post of Scott Gu talks a little about using the <atlas:updatepanel> with the december CTP drop of Atlas, and builds an Ajax task-list in 39 lines of code with it (no javascript required -- it can all be done with C#). You can learn more about the January CTP drop (which has a lot of enhancements and new features for the <atlas:updatepanel> here).

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/02/21/438732.aspx