There are too many features in ASP.NET 4.5 to cover in one post, so
I'll stick with some of the notable features added or enhanced in this
version.
- Web Sockets: Full support for the Web Sockets HTML5 standard is available with ASP.NET 4.5 running on IIS 8.0 via the SignalR library. This allows you to easily add real-time Web functionality to applications.
- Authentication: There is now a universal provider (DefaultMembershipProvider) for simplification. In addition, the OAuth protocol is embraced.
- Async programming: While this feature is not ASP.NET-specific, it is worth noting that C# 5 and Visual Basic 11 provide async support without using multiple threads (via async and await keywords).
- Web publishing: This feature has been enhanced, whereas you can compare local and remotes files, publish only selected files, and so forth.
- Web API: This API provides the REST approach to building applications -- a key difference from the WCF alternative. In addition, the Web API now includes extensive OData support, which is another instance of Microsoft embracing open source standards.
- Friendly URLs: The popularity of tinyurl demonstrates the widespread problem of keeping up with long, arcane URLs. This feature is now available with ASP.NET applications via the FriendlyURLs feature.
- Mobile: The explosion of smartphones, eReaders and other mobile devices has changed the landscape for Web application development. HTML5 support is supposed to simplify mobile application development. In addition, MVC 4 includes mobile templates, and there are a variety of mobile device emulators that can be used in Visual Studio 2012.
- IIS: This allows you to use new features available in Internet Information Server (IIS) 8.0. Some of these features include prefetching and application initialization like application ping on startup. Also, an express edition of IIS is now available.
