Top 10 New Features in ASP.net MVC 4

What is New in ASP.net MVC 4 ?

Feature 1 : ASP.net Web API

      What is ASP.net Web API ?

• A New framework for creating HTTP services
• That can reach a broad range of clients including browsers and mobile devices
• Web API is also an ideal platform for building RESTful services

Feature 2 : Enhancements to Default Project Templates

• The Template that is used to create new ASP.net MVC 4 projects has been updated to create a more modern-looking websites

• In addition to cosmetic improvements, there’s improved functionality in the new template
• The Template employs a technique called Responsive Design to look good in both desktop browsers and mobile browsers without any customization

How to See Responsive Design in Action ?

• You can use a mobile emulator or just try re-sizing the desktop browser window to be smaller
• When the browser window gets small enough, the layout of the page will change

What is Responsive Web Design (RWD) ?

• Is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience
• Easy reading and navigation with a minimum of re-sizing  panning, and scrolling across awide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones)

Feature 3 : Mobile Project Template

• If you’re starting a new project and want to create a site specifically for mobile and tablet browsers
• Then you can use the new Mobile Application project Template
• This is based on jQuery Mobile, an open-source library for building touch-optimized UI
• This template contains the same application structure as the Internet Application template and the controller code is virtually identical
• But it's styled using jQuery Mobile

Feature 4 : Display Modes

• Lets an application select views depending on the browser that's making the request

For example :

• If a desktop browser requests the Home page, the application might use theViews\Home\Index.cshtml template
• If a mobile browser requests the Home page, the application might return theViews\Home\Index.mobile.cshtml template

• Layouts and Partials can also be overridden for particular browser types. 

That is :

Layouts :

• If your Views\Shared folder contains both the _Layout.cshtml and _Layout.mobile.cshtmltemplates,
• Then by default the application will use _Layout.mobile.cshtml during requests from mobile browsers and _Layout.cshtml during other requests

Partials :

• If a folder contains both _MyPartial.cshtml and _MyPartial.mobile.cshtml,
• The instruction @Html.Partial("_MyPartial") will render _MyPartial.mobile.cshtml duringrequests from mobile browsers, and _MyPartial.cshtml during other requests

Feature 5 : jQuery Mobile and Mobile Features

• The jQuery Mobile library provides a user interface framework that works on all the major mobile browsers
• jQuery Mobile applies progressive enhancement to mobile browsers that support CSS and JavaScript
• Progressive enhancement allows all browsers to display the basic content of a web page,while allowing more powerful browsers and devices to have a richer display
• The JavaScript and CSS files that are included with jQuery Mobile style many elements to fit mobile browsers without making any markup changes
• You can install the jQuery.Mobile.MVC NuGet package, which installs jQuery Mobile and aview-switcher widget

Feature 6 : Task Support for Asynchronous Controllers

• You can now write asynchronous action methods as single methods that return an object of type Task or Task<ActionResult>

Feature 7 : Azure SDK

• ASP.net MVC 4 supports the Newer release of the Windows Azure SDK 2.0

Feature 8 : Database Migrations

• ASP.net MVC 4 projects now include Entity Framework 5
• One of the great features in Entity Framework 5 is support for database migrations
• This feature enables you to easily evolve your database schema using a code-focused migration while preserving the data in the database

Feature 9 : Bundling and Minification

• The bundling and minification framework enables you to reduce the number of HTTP requests
• That a Web page needs to make by combining individual files into a single,
• Bundled file for scripts and CSS
• It can then reduce the overall size of those requests by minifying the contents of the bundle

What is Minifying ?

• Minifying can include activities like eliminating white space to shortening variable names to even collapsing CSS selectors based on their semantics

How to Handle Bundles ?

• Bundles are declared and configured in code and are easily referenced in views via helper methods
• Which can generate either a single link to the bundle or,
• When debugging, multiple links to the individual contents of the bundle

Feature 10 : Enabling Logins from Facebook and Other Sites Using OAuth

                            and OpenID

• The default templates in ASP.net MVC 4 Internet Project template now includes support forOAuth and OpenID login using the DotNetOpenAuth library
• It's on App_Start ==> AuthConfig.cs File