Testing and Debugging
Visual Web Developer provides an environment to build Web sites and publish them to your preferred hosting site. The development tools in Visual Web Developer, can be used to develop ASP.NET Web pages on Visual Web Developer’s Local Web Server. The Local Web server includes all features for testing and debugging ASP.NET Web pages. When using the Local Web Server for testing and debugging purposes, you do not need to connect to the Internet or even need a Hosting Service. When using the Local Web Server it does not even need Internet Information Services (IIS) to be installed.
When the ASP.NET Web Application or the Web Site is ready, it can be publish on the host computer using the built-in Copy Web tool. The built-in Copy Web tool transfers the files when you are ready to upload it to the Internet.
You can also precompile and deploy a Web site using the Build Web Site command. The Build Web Site command runs the compiler over the entire Web site (not just the code files) and produces a Web site layout that you can deploy to a production server.
Note
- The Build Web Site feature is not available in Visual Web Developer Express Edition.
The built-in support for File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and its FTP capabilities of Visual Web Developer enables you to connect directly to the host computer and then create and edit files on the server.