Professional Asp.net 3.5 Ajax

by Evjen, Bill; Gibbs, Matt; Wahlin, Dan; Reed, Dave

• ISBN13: 9780470392171
• ISBN10: 0470392177
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-02-03
• Publisher: Wrox

Summary

ASP.NET revolutionized Web application development. The platform handles many of the complexities of creating Web applications. Now ASP.NET AJAX takes the development platform even further. The lines between rich client applications and traditionally less interactive browser-based applications are being further blurred with the use of this technology.The ASP.NET AJAX Library brings object-oriented programming to JavaScript development for modern browsers, and the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions makes it easy to write rich Web applications that communicate with the Web server asynchronously. Again, the complexities are made easy by using ASP.NET.The new server controls that are part of ASP.NET AJAX make it simple to designate parts of the page to be updated automatically without making the user pause and wait while the data is refreshed. You can have partial page updates without writing a single line of code. Other new controls let you alert the user that background work is happening and designate regular intervals at which updates occur. In addition, the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit makes it easy to make your user interface really come to life with animations, modal dialogs, transition effects, and more.Ajax is definitely the hot buzzword in the Web application world at the moment. Ajax is an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and, in Web application development, it signifies the capability to build applications that make use of the XMLHttpRequest object.The creation and the inclusion of the XMLHttpRequest object in JavaScript and the fact that most upper-level browsers support the use of this object led to creation of the Ajax model. Ajax applications, although they have been around for a few years, gained greater popularity after Google released a number of notable, Ajax-enabled applications such as Google Maps and Google Suggest. These applications demonstrated the value of Ajax.Shortly thereafter, Microsoft released a beta for a new toolkit that enabled developers to incorporate Ajax features in their Web applications. This toolkit, code-named Atlas and later renamed ASP.NET AJAX, makes it extremely simple to start using Ajax features in applications today.Prior to Visual Studio 2008, the ASP.NET AJAX product used to be a separate application that developers were required to install on their machine and the Web server that they were working with. This release gained in popularity quite rapidly and has now been made a part of the Visual Studio 2008 offering. Not only is it a part of the Visual Studio 2008 IDE, the ASP.NET AJAX product is also baked into the .NET Framework 3.5. This means that in order to use ASP.NET AJAX, developers are not going to need to install anything if they are working with ASP.NET 3.5.Overall, Microsoft has fully integrated the entire ASP.NET AJAX experience in that developers can easily use Visual Studio and its visual designers to work with your Ajax-enabled pages and even have the full debugging story that they would want to have with their applications. Using Visual Studio 2008, developers are now able to debug straight into the JavaScript that they are using in the pages.In addition, it is important to note that Microsoft focused a lot of attention on cross-platform compatibility with ASP.NET AJAX. Developers will find that the Ajax-enabled applications that they build upon the .NET Framework 3.5 are able to work within all the major up-level browsers out there (e.g., FireFox and Opera).This book is aimed at experienced ASP.NET developers looking to add AJAX to their applications, and experienced Web developers who want to move to using ASP.NET and AJAX together.In this book, I assume that you already have an understanding of how ASP.NET works. For an in-depth discussion of ASP.NET, I recommend Professional ASP.NET 3.5 by Bill Evjen, et al. (Wrox, 2008). The focus here is on how you can extend ASP.N

Table of Contents

Overview of AJAX

Why AJAX Applications Are Needed

Bringing Richness to Web Applications

Who Benefits from AJAX?

Technologies of AJAX

AJAX Libraries

Creating a Simple Web Page with AJAX

The Power of AJAX

Summary

ASP.NET 3.5 and AJAX

ASP.NET 3.5 Brings a Lot to the Table

ASP.NET AJAX Applications

ASP.NET AJAX's Server-Side Controls

Using Multiple UpdatePanel Controls

The Client-Side Page Request Lifecycle

Canceling a Request

Detecting Errors

Working with Updates

Summary

JavaScript for the ASP.NET Developer

Variable Types in JavaScript

Language Anomalies

Scoping Variables

Using Prototypes

Close on Closures

Evaluating eval()

Handling Exceptions

Getting Parts of a String

Better JavaScript

Summary

Understanding the ASP.NET AJAX Client Library

The Browser Page Lifecycle

Using the Type System

Base Class Library

Supporting IntelliSense

Errors and Debugging

The Browser Object

The Sys Namespace

Summary

The ScriptManager

The Ubiquitous ScriptManager

ASP.NET Application Services

Error Handling

Customizing the Location of Scripts

Script Combining

Summary

Controlling the Back Button

The Document Fragment Indicator

Sample Application

Enabling Partial Updates

Adding History Support

State Encoding

Managing History Client-Side

Client-Side Updates

Adding History Support

Deep Linking

Summary

The ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit

Downloading and Installing

The ASP.NET AJAX Controls

ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit Extenders

ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit Server Controls

Summary

Services

Authenticating Users

Managing User Roles

Summary

ASP.NET AJAX Networking

The XMLHttpRequest Object

Making WebRequest Calls

Managing Web Requests

Passing Data

Summary

Working with Animations

Working with the Animation Control

Examples of Animation Actions

Summary

Building Custom Controls

Building Client-Side ASP.NET AJAX Controls

Building a Server-Side ASP.NET AJAX Control

Summary

Web Parts

Introducing Web Parts

Building a Web Parts Page without AJAX

Understanding Postbacks with Web Parts

Adding AJAX to the Web Parts Page

Building a Custom Web Part with AJAX

Summary

Localization

What Is Localization?Cultures and Regions

Server-Side versus Client-Side Localization

Client-Side Culture Details

ASP.NET 3.5 Resource Files

Looking at the Resource Editor

Script Localization with Static Files

Embedding JavaScript Files

Summary

State Management

Understanding State in .NET

Understanding Sessions

Using the Application Object

Using Cookies

Using ViewState

State Management and ASP.NET AJAX

Summary

Testing and Debugging ASP.NET AJAX Applications

Debug and Release Scripts

Using the Error Class

Using the Sys

Debug Class

Enabling Internet Explorer for Debugging

Viewing ASP.NET AJAX Request and Response Messages

Summary

Deploying ASP.NET AJAX Applications

Installing the Bits

ASP.NET AJAX

Preparing for Web Farm Deployment

Using a Different Platform

Avoiding Common Configuration Pro<$$$>

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