Chapter 1, Getting Ready, introduces the ASP.NET Core and Angular 2 frameworks, explaining how they can effectively be used to build a feature-rich, modern SPA. It then enumerates the core aspects of a common SPA project, which will be addressed throughout the following chapters. The last part covers the required steps for setting up a .NET Core Web Application project, together with its required packages and components, up to a buildable and running app skeleton.

Chapter 2, ASP.NET Controllers and Server-Side Routes, explains how we can interchange Json data between a server-side .NET Controller and a client-side Angular 2 Component. The reader will learn how to handle the HTTP request-response cycle and also how to configure the improved routing logic built upon the .NET Core pipeline.

Chapter 3, Angular 2 Components and Client-Side Routing, focuses about the client-side aspects of our SPA: the reader will learn how to fetch JSON objects with Angular 2 core classes and show the retrieved data on screen using the Angular 2 Template Syntax. We will also explain how the client-side routing works in a SPA and what we need do to implement a viable routing pattern for our project using the PathLocationStrategy.

Chapter 4, The Data Model, is dedicated to the building of a proper, DBMS-based Data Model using Entity Framework Core. The reader will learn how to install and properly configure the required EF Core packages: we will also explain how to properly implement them to build a list of Entities and persist them into a stable Database structure using the Code-First approach.

Chapter 5, Persisting Changes, will explain how to update the application code to make full usage of the EF Core entities defined in Chapter 4, The Data Model. The reader will learn how to fetch and persist the application data by using the Database instead of the sample mocking methods.

Chapter 6, Applying Styles, will introduce LESS, a powerful dynamic stylesheet language that can be compiled into CSS. After a brief overview of the LESS language syntax, the reader will learn how to add, implement and compile LESS scripts within the application project to greatly improve the front-end UI.

Chapter 7, Authentication and Authorization, will guide the reader through the most relevant auth-related concepts for building a web application. The reader will learn how to implement a sample Token-based authentication provider and also how to properly add and configure it throughout the existing Entity Framework entities, .NET core services and HTTP middleware list.

Chapter 8, Third-Party Authentication and External Providers, further expands the authentication and authorization topics introducing OpenIddict, an open-source .NET library based upon the AspNet OpenID Connect Server (ASOS) that can be used to handle internal and external auth providers. The reader will learn how to install OpenIddict and configure it to support Facebook, Google and Twitter authentication.

Chapter 9, User Registration and Account Edit, is dedicated to account-related features such as user registration and edit account mechanism. The reader will learn how to properly handle such requests by implementing a dedicated .NET Core Controller together with a versatile Angular 2 Model-Driven form.

Chapter 10, Finalization and Deployment, describes the most common tasks to publish a potentially shippable web application onto a production server. The reader will learn how to replace its localDb instance with an external SQL Server, create FTP and FileSystem publishing profiles, upload their compiled application to an external server and configure it to run under IIS using the .NET Core Windows Server Hosting bundle; he will also learn how to deal with the most common issues with the help of some .NET Core specific troubleshooting techniques.

This book is for seasoned ASP.NET developers who already know about ASP.NET Core and Angular 2, but want to blend them together to craft a production-ready SPA.

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."

A block of code is set as follows:

<%@ taglib prefix="c" 
      uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%> 
 
      <!DOCTYPE html> 
      <html lang="en"> 
           <head> 
                <meta charset="utf-8"> 
                <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" 
                 content="IE=edge"> 
                <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, 
                 initial-scale=1">

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

<dependency> 
   <groupId>org.springframework</groupId> 
   <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId> 
   <version>4.2.2.RELEASE</version> 
</dependency>

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_91-b15)

 Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.91-b15, mixed mode)

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Click on the Java Platform (JDK) 8u91/8u92 download link"

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