Generate Data-Based Web Sites With Blinq

Blinq 1.0 is Microsoft's prototype of an extension to LINQ to SQL (formerly DLinq) that auto-generates a complete data-entry and editing ASP.NET 2.0 Web site by executing a simple command-line statement.

The "Generate Data-Based Web Sites With Blinq" article from FTPOnline's ASPNET Channel and the .NETInsight newsletter describes how to obtain the necessary LINQ May 2006 CTP and Blinq 1.0 prerequisites and then autogenerate a 25-page site in less than a minute.

Blinq 1.0 is a much more sophisticated site-generation implementation than Ruby on Rails' scaffolding feature. For example, Blinq 1.0 uses ASP.NET 2.0's SiteMap and Menu server controls to provide single-click, site-wide navigation. Editing takes full advantage of DetailsView and paged GridView server controls. Blinq 1.0 also supports editing tables with composite primary keys, such as the Northwind database's Order Details table; Ruby on Rails scaffolding doesn't support composite keys.

The downloadable sample code requires the Northwind sample database running on SQL Server 2005 or SQL Express. The article also includes instructions for modifing the generated source code to repurpose the homepage and adjust the master page layout to reduce whitespace on all pages.

See the earlier "2006 Lang .NET Symposium to Expose Blinq for ASP.NET" OakLeaf post for more background on Microsoft's Blink 1.0 protoype Web-site generator. Click here for links to all FTPOnline channels.

Click here to read the June 27, 2006 issue of .NETInsight, which includes the final session lineup for VSLive! New York to be held September 10 to 13, 2006. Sessions feature data access from Microsoft's new "Data Dude" to LINQ to SQL. Other topics include ASP.NET data binding, C# methods, VB.NET, and testing. Technorati Tags: Blinq, LINQ, DLinq, LINQ to SQL, ASP.NET, Ruby on Rails, Scaffolding, VB 9.0, Visual Basic 9, Orcas