ASP.NET 2.0 supports a new Wizard functionality. This is done with the <asp:Wizard> tag. You declare steps within this tag that define the pages of the wizard. All of the state is retained across the pages.
In VS2005, there is a new DataSet designer. In previous versions, DataSets were designed in the XML Schema Editor. In addition to making it easier to work with DataSets, it simplifies extending the generated DataSet classes.
In the past, you would create the XSD schema and the tool would generate a set of classes in a code-behind file. If you wanted to extend or customize these classes, you could really only derive a class from the dataSet and add methods to it. The ability to override key behaviors required a lot more effort.
In VS2005, there is a new code-behind file (code-beside?) along side the generated file that allows you to add code directly into the classes that were generated. Very nice!
I spent the last couple of days at the Heartland Developer's Conference 2005 in Cedar Rapids. Small regional conferences like this are sometimes hit-or-miss in terms of content but, overall, I was happy I went. I learned several things I didn't know before, so I thought I would post them here.
Congratulations to Joe Olsen who directed the conference. Nicely done.