ASP (Active Server Pages) is a Microsoft technology that allows developers to create dynamic web applications. ASP is a server-side scripting language that is used to build web pages that can access and interact with databases, display and manipulate data, and perform various operations.
If you're a beginner and want to learn how to create a dynamic web page using ASP, this article is perfect for you. In this series, we will teach you how to create your first ASP page, which is a simple web page that prints out "Hello World."
Before we start, you need to have some basic knowledge of HTML and a text editor to write your code. You can use any text editor, but we recommend Visual Studio Code because it is open-source, free, and has built-in support for ASP.
Step 1: Creating a Blank HTML Page
To begin, open Visual Studio Code, create a new file, and save it as "helloworld.html" in a folder on your computer. This file will contain the HTML code for your page.
Next, add the following code to your file:
```
Hello World
```
This code is a basic HTML template that provides the structure for your web page. It includes the `` declaration, which tells the browser that this is an HTML5 document. It also includes an opening and closing `` tag to enclose all of the HTML code, as well as `` and `` tags to contain the head and body sections of the page.
Step 2: Writing ASP Code
Now that we have our HTML page set up, we can start adding the ASP code that will print out "Hello World." To do that, rename the file from 'helloworld.html' to 'helloworld.asp.'
Now, add the following code to your new asp file:
```
<%
Response.Write("Hello World")
%>
```
This code includes two ASP tags: `<% %>` The code within these tags is executed on the server side, and the output is sent to the browser.
The first line is a shorthand for the classic `<% Response.Write "Hello World" %>` that will output the text "Hello World." The `Response.Write` function is the most commonly used method for outputting text in ASP.
Step 3: Running Your ASP Page
Now that you have your ASP page written, you need to test it. To do that, you will need to set up a web server on your computer. You can use IIS (Internet Information Services) that comes pre-installed with Windows 10, or XAMPP or WAMP (for Mac or Windows).
Follow the instructions of your chosen web server software to install it on your computer. Once your web server is set up, you can run your ASP page as follows:
1. Open your web browser (preferably Chrome, Firefox, or Edge as older web browsers may not support asp).
2. Type in the address bar: `http://localhost/helloworld.asp`
3. Press enter.
If everything is set up correctly, you should see "Hello World" printed on the screen.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You have just created your first ASP page. This simple web page is just the beginning of what you can do with ASP. ASP allows you to connect to databases, create dynamic content, and integrate with other software and web services.
In the next tutorial, we will expand on this by adding a dynamic component to your web page. We will show you how to use variables and forms to take user input and create more complex and dynamic output.
Remember to save your code, and don't be afraid to experiment and make changes to see the results. Happy coding!