Microsoft has made available a really nice set of extended controls for use with Atlas. The announcement was made by Shawn Burke, who is on the Atlas team. The toolkit is available form the Atlas site, here. The toolkit is really a set of samples that show controls and extenders for the existing Atlas controls. There is also an SDK that assists developers to create their own controls and extenders. The controls out-of-the-box are pretty nice. My favorite is the Drag Panel which behaves much like the panels on my.yahoo.com. If you don’t have Atlas which I mentioned the release here, then go get it. From the Atlas toolkit web site you can check out the samples included in the toolkit:

In the "Atlas" Control Toolkit, you'll find the following controls and extenders (click the links to see them in action!):

• CascadingDropDown: Easily link drop downs, complete with asynchronous population and no postbacks!
• CollaspiblePanel: This extender allows panels on your page to collapse and expand with no code.
• ConfirmButton: This extender adds a confirm dialog to any Button, LinkButton, or ImageButton control.
• DragPanel: Makes any panel into an object that you can drag around the page.
• HoverMenu: Allows UI to pop up next to a control when the user hovers over it.
• PopupControl: This extender turns any panel into a popup.
• ReorderList: This control is a full-featured data-bound control that allows its elements to be reordered on the client via drag and drop.
• TextBoxWatermark: This extender adds "watermark" prompt text to TextBoxes on the page.
• ToggleButton: This extender turns an ASP

I am planning on digging into these controls over the next week or so and I will report back on them. Technorati Tags: ASP.NET, Ajax, Atlas, Microsoft

In case anyone missed it, Microsoft released the April CTP of Atlas, their Ajax toolkit.  I have been using the last build to work through some test projects and the took kit is fantastic.

I know it has been reported the amount of the data is large for Atlas-enabled pages but the performance is good.  I am sure Microsoft will optimize this as the debug code comes out and things will get smaller.

There are also some great sample applications available on the Atlas web site.   Is anyone using this framework?  If so, what are you building?

Rick Strahl has a great example of using Atlas for a chat web service here.

Technorati Tags: ASP.NET, Ajax, Microsoft

The latest and greatest CTP of Atlas is available now. You can check it out here and download it.   This CTP also includes the “Go Live” license so you can use this version in your applications and produce production code.

I have been using Atlas in some test projects and it appears Microsoft is producing some nice AJAX features we can use without having to be a JavaScript expert.

This announcement came from MIX’06 and you can find more information here as well.

Technorati Tags : ASP.NET, AJAX, Atlas, Microsoft

I have been doing a lot of research with regards to AJAX technologies lately.  I figured I would share some of the more useful ones I have found:

• Wilco Bauwer’s Atlas Site
• Rick Strahl’s Weblog – browse through the posts and look at the AJAX ones, very insightful
• West Wind Hover Panel Control – a nice control by Rick Strahl
• Telerik RadCallBack Control

A very nice and thorough comparison of AJAX frameworks was done by Daniel Zeiss.  It gives some nice details as far as browser support, developer support and page rendering size too.  It’s well worth the read if you considering implementing AJAX in your applications.

Another nice piece from the Code Project covering the use of the open source AJAX project called Anthem.Net is worth a read.

One note or word of caution regarding some of these AJAX controls is these controls break down into two categories; the first group being those controls that require you to create your own JavaScript to handle the callbacks and the second set of controls are encapsulated and shelter you from the JavaScript.   The first group of controls include those from Michael Schwarz known as Ajax.NET Professional.  The second group of controls include those from Telerik with their RadCallback Control suite as well as the set of controls from Anthem.Net.  The problems I have been facing with using the Telerik controls relates to the fact that I don’t write the JavaScript myself so I rely on the Telerik controls working with the other intrinsic controls I am using.  On problem in particular that has come up is using Telerik callback controls with .NET 2.0 validation controls.  The controls get along fine until the callback occurs and the validation controls are reloaded, this causes some strange JavaScript problems and future events such as a button push no longer work.  Since I have no control over the JavaScript I have no way to fix this. 

When looking at using AJAX technology I think it’s key to understand the different offerings of controls and the pluses and minuses of each type.  The average user with very basic needs  probably doesn’t need or want to write JavaScript but to be most effective you will probably need to.  It will be interesting to see how the Microsoft Atlas project fairs in relation to this.  Atlas is being touted as not having to write JavaScript and hopefully will be able to get along with it’s own non-AJAX validation controls.  We will see.

Technorati Tags : AJAX, Atlas

The current project I am working on is an ASP.NET (C# 2.0) application that is a specialized eCommerce system. 

Our approach is to look at our system and determine where AJAX belongs and where it doesn’t.  AJAX is not a new technology but is a newly branded old-technology.  Any time you find a “craze” such as this it’s easy to think it’s an end-all solution to all problems.  This is not the case.  Rick Strahl has some great insight into AJAX in a post from August 2005.  All of his views are right on if you step back and think about AJAX as a technology and ignore all the “me too” people out there.

I believe AJAX can be used successfully in well-planned-out areas of our application used by your customers that potentially have the biggest impact.  The biggest impact in my mind is making a better user experience, not for marketing to use the term “AJAX” to help with a sale and make it sound like we are trendy.

We are implementing AJAX in simple items at first to replace the usual postback in changing a selection in a drop down list to remove the usual behavior of a postback to make the interface much smoother.  An example of this is choosing a country in a drop down and filling the states/province associated drop down behind the scenes.  This is a simple and subtle example but it really makes a difference.

I am planning on using AJAX in our shopping cart application when an item quantity is changed to update totals and such.  This can also apply when removing an item.  These types of nuances to make the user interface smooth with no postbacks is the perfect spot. 

Other areas we are considering using AJAX is to pull down panels to edit information.  The information doesn’t need to show until you want to edit it, so why show it.  I will report back later and show some examples of how we are using it in the future.

Technorati Tags : AJAX, Atlas

Microsoft has opened up a new web site for the Atlas Project.  In case you haven’t heard the Atlas Project is Microsoft’s answer to AJAX technology.

Pretty interesting technology and worth a look.

Microsoft announced today information about an initiative for supporting Asynchronous JavaScript (AJAX) in ASP.NET 2.0.   AJAX is not a new technology but has been used recently by such companies as Google in Google Maps and GMail.  AJAX allows client-side script to make calls to the web server without issuing a postback and therefore making the user experience much smoother and more enjoyable.

Scott Guthrie is the person inside of Microsoft who is responsible for incorporating such technologies.  You can read more on his weblog for more information.

In case you are not  aware of what Asynchronous JavaScript is and how it can be used you  should check out the AJAX.NET library.  This technology is what Google uses  for Google Maps and GMail, among others.

This technology has been around for a long time but only until recently has become a hot topic.  You can read about Asynchronous JavaScript from Adaptive Path.

You can thank Michael Schwarz for making the  .NET developer’s life so much easier with his AJAX  library.  From the AJAX.NET blog:

I have released the next version of the free Ajax.NET    Library. You can download the latest version    5.6.2.1 at http://ajax.schwarz-interactive.de/. 

The new features are:    

• System.Web.UI.HtmlControls support as arguments and return      value to support client control updates without postbacks     
• System.Guid converter     
• Cache Ajax.NET request and response using      [Ajax.AjaxMethod(seconds)]     
• Configure the virtual filename for the Ajax.NET JavaScript      files. In old version you could see the Namespace, Classname and      Assemblyname.

The StackOverflowException I got from several developers was    the missing support of System.Guid. This should now work, sorry!

There are new examples available at http://ajax.schwarz-interactive.de/ for    HtmlControls, Caching and the Namespace Mapping. You have to scroll to the    bottom of the page!   

Updated:
some  other small bugfixes for a new version number: version 5.6.2.2
– fixed this.url    in class.ashx if server is in root folder
– fixed byte[],    StackOverflowException
– changed interface IAjaxObjectConverter, added    property ClientScriptIdentifier to remove multiple client    scripts

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