Last year I started working on the Aincha Web Framework. This ASP.Net framework should make it possible to create websites with the use of widgets as building blocks. The configuration of the website is done by the use of XML.

With the use of XML configuration files, different page types can be defined which will be used to put different widgets inside the template placeholders. The same widget can be used by different page types.

I the first (proof of concept) version of the Aincha Web Framework I used XSD.exe to generate C# code which make it possible to deserialize XML files against these code generated classes. XSD.exe has some limitations when it comes to complex XML schemas. With the release of .Net 3.5 you can use LINQ (Language Integrated Query) which makes it possible to make use of datasources (like SQL, XML) directly from within the source code.

To continue with the Aincha Web Framework, to get a basic useful framework, I will do a little research on the use of LINQ to XSD and LINQ to XML for the XML configuration files. I will post the results on my blog.