An application is essentially a set of files that work together to do certain tasks.

An application may be as simple as a set of pages that link together, or a bit more involved such as enabling users to browse, select, add, edit and delete entries in a database.

This document covers in brief the concepts behind ASP.NET Web applications in general, and the steps to define the scope of an ASP.NET application on a Web server.

NOTE: Although newer versions of Web development tools such as Visual Studio does not require a Web server for development purposes, the discussions here focus on developing applications for actual deployment.

While a Web application is basically the same as a simple Web site in terms of file structure, ASP.NET applications typically employ various facets of server-side processing to accomplish different needs, and as such expect certain specific types of files and folders to function accordingly.

Like any other Web site, you can keep your files in any folder structure that is convenient for your application. But if you later intend to let users navigate your site via controls whose content can be generated dynamically, such as a TreeView Control, a Menu Control, or a SiteMapPath Control, then you will need to plan your site structure appropriately.

And to make it easier to work with your application during both development and deployment, I suggest you layout the structure of your files during development in exactly the same structure you intend to have them online.

This precludes the need for any adjustments or modifications, particularly in terms of configuration, security, and file paths and other resource references, when the site is eventually deployed.

This way you simply upload any changes done in your dev server to the remote hosting machine, and all references will resolve as they do on the dev machine, without having to reconfigure anything.

If this is your very first attempt in building a Web site from scratch, I suggest you go through the basic concepts presented in Conceptualizing Your Web.

With the intended layout of your site’s structure already in mind, let us now briefly explore how to deploy the site on a development server. The simplest way would be to install Internet Information Services, or IIS, the Web server component of Microsoft Windows server operating systems, on the same machine where your site is being developed.

For more information, see Publishing ASP.NET Files

The following section provides information that you may find useful in setting up your site’s structure.