10 Features You Probably Don't Know about .NET Blazor

Learn about the top 10 things Blazor can do that only a few developers know.

If you tried Blazor back in its early days, you must have faced some issues that made you think that it was not working well for your project. But those issues don’t exist anymore. Blazor fits perfectly with ASP.NET Core, works with all major .NET APIs as long as the browser’s security allows it, and even works closely with JavaScript.

This makes it a solid reason to choose it to build robust and fast web applications with .NET Blazor. Blazor is relatively new in web development but has grown up fast. People have noticed it recently. Despite its rising fame, there are misconceptions and ignorance about what Blazor can do. In this blog, we’ll discuss the top 10 things Blazor can do that only a few developers know.

Build Robust Applications with These Latest .NET Blazor Features

Some features in the latest version of .NET Blazor are awesome and help you build scalable and secure systems.

Blazor Is As Powerful and Useful as JavaScript

Blazor gets full access to all the browser’s JavaScript APIs through JavaScript interoperability or JS interop. So, a Blazor app can call JavaScript functions from .NET methods and .NET methods from JavaScript functions. They can work well together.

Just because Blazor uses .NET and WebAssembly doesn’t mean it is a limited browser. The Blazor framework makes many tasks easier, such as handling the DOM (rendering components and HTML), fetching data using HTTP, and client-side routing.

While Blazor runs on .NET and WebAssembly, they sure aren’t holding it back. Developers use JavaScript interop when the Blazor framework doesn’t have an API or component for what they need. Sometimes, they also use it to tap into everything JavaScript offers.

Blazor Can Do Anything HTML & CSS Can Do

Many developers wonder if Blazor can handle user interface frameworks or CSS libraries. The answer is YES. Even though Blazor uses Razor templates to make components, what you get in the end is HTML shown in the browser.

The HTML & CSS made by Blazor appear just like any other HTML or CSS to the browser. This means valid HTML and CSS works in a Blazor app. So, feel free to use all those cool CSS features like media queries for making your design responsive, custom variable properties), or even pre-processors such as SASS.

Blazor Works Well With .NET 5 and C# 9

Blazor comes with .NET and supports all the important APIs. It is important to note that some APIs don’t work in a browser because they can’t access the local file system, such as file I/O. But still, there’s so much a developer can do.

.NET Blazor also works with the latest C# version 9.0. What’s great about using the newest language features? Your code not only looks simple but performs better, too. Did you know you can save time with simpler object initialization now? When making new instances, there is no need to keep typing the class again. Moreover, remember you can use Span for quick array and string work.

Blazor can Build a Markdown Editor

Now, you can build a markdown editor using Blazor. It’s simple. Blazor supports .NET libraries and makes them fast for development. You can use a basic Blazor WebAssembly markdown editor to develop it.

Markdown is an excellent way to create web documents without all the HTML issues. It’s lightweight and super easy to use, and you don’t have to deal with tricky tags or controls. Places like GitHub and many CMS platforms support Markdown.

Blazor and MVC can Work Together

If you’re working on an ASP.NET Core MVC or Razor pages app, you can still work with .NET Blazor because it is part of ASP.NET Core. Blazor works well with your existing work environment, so you can migrate to It or use it along with your existing one for extra flexibility.

To use this, you need the “component tag helper.” It helps you render the Razor Component, which is Blazor’s model, in an MVC app. You don’t just get to use Blazor in an MVC or Razor pages application; it also plays a significant role in Server Pre-rendering and Microsoft Identity Authentication.

By using Blazor Server or Blazor WebAssembly apps with pre-rendering, your app will use HTML pages.

Blazor can Do .NET Lazy Loading

Performance is crucial for any application, and the payload size of web applications is closely examined. In .NET 5.0, new infrastructure was introduced for Blazor to facilitate the loading of libraries as needed.

By loading assemblies on a demand basis, the application’s initial load time is reduced. Although this feature is built into the Blazor framework, it is not enabled by default. Developers can specify when the resource requires loading. This manual setup allows custom loading specifications to meet the application’s specific needs.

Blazor Works Well with Pre-Existing .NET Libraries

Most of the old .NET code will work in Blazor with no changes. Since Blazor runs standard .NET code, your app can use .NET DLLs & NuGet packages developed before Blazor ever came out.

Libraries supporting .NET Standard or .NET Core and not targeting specific platform APIs like Xamarin or Desktop should work fine in Blazor. For example, take Markdig, it is a nifty library that converts markdown strings to HTML. Another example is FluentValidation, which is perfect for setting up app-wide validation rules.

Lazy Loading Java in Blazor is Possible

In .NET 5.0, Blazor was updated to treat JavaScript modules as first-class entities. This update means the capability to lazy load modules through the JSRuntime service’s JavaScript interop feature.

A developer can use the InvokeAsync method to utilize the dynamic loading function of JSRuntime. You need to specify the type IJSObjectReference to represent the reference to the JavaScript module that requires loading.

Blazor Supports Full Stack Testing and QA

Many see Blazor’s ability as its best strength, but its potential for testing is even more significant. Blazor and the tools that support this process are the right choices.

Unlike traditional JavaScript-based frameworks, .Net Blazor use the ecosystem to unify client and server logic under one robust language: C#. This unique characteristic enhances testing, and QA capabilities significantly. The framework’s strong typing and compile-time checking reduce trivial errors and streamline the development process. Core concepts of Blazor testing include unit testing with xUnit, which efficiently validates business logic and shared code between client and server.

Easy Virtualization with Blazor

In many business applications, it’s common to deal with long lists of data. When these lists are extremely large, they can slow down the app due to obvious reasons of effort required to display each item. This is where virtualization comes in handy. Instead of loading and displaying every single item in the list, virtualization smartly displays only the items that are currently visible to the user. This keeps the app running smoothly and efficiently, even with very large datasets.

Implementing virtualization is quite simple in Blazor applications. Take, for example, a Food item component that shows a collection of food items. To enable virtualization within this component, allowing the app to render only the items that are currently visible, the developers simply need to enclose the list within the Virtualize component.

Conclusion

Blazor has all the essential features of a modern web framework, such as routing, validation and forms, layouts, server-side rendering, and dependency injection. As .NET Blazor continues to evolve into a more advanced framework with regular updates to meet emerging needs, we encourage you to give it a try before it becomes too late, and your competitor takes a lead.