Datasheet

❑ Google Maps — The ability to grab a map and zoom around without requiring a postback is
just amazing. This app/service took the development world by storm when it came out.
❑ Google Gmail — Google Gmail is a web-based email system.
❑ Live.com — The local.live.com service from Microsoft is actively using the ASP.NET AJAX
framework, as is nearly the entire Live.com service. Hotmail, the email service for Live.com,
has updated its service and uses AJAX.
❑ Outlook web access — The web interface into Microsoft Exchange 2000 was one of the early
AJAX applications.
❑ Easy Search Component — The ASP.NET Easy Search Component provides support for search-
ing a single web site similar to the Google Suggest service.
❑ Other component vendors — Component vendors such as ComponentArt, Dart, and others are
providing controls that provide a rich user experience without forcing a full postback.
To go along with the third-party interest, the amount of developer interest is tremendous. For example,
one only has to put the word AJAX into a blog title to receive an increase in the number of web views.
Based on the amount of third-party support and the interest of developers, it is only a matter of time
before everyone is doing it.
Currently
At this time, the first version of the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX framework is an add-on to the existing .NET 2.0.
It runs on top of the framework with no changes to the underlying “bits.”
ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX falls into four areas:
❑ Server-side controls — Server-side controls generate the appropriate client-side markup and
script to perform client-side operations without the need for a postback. These controls provide
a fairly easy environment to debug. For example, debugging with the
UpdatePanel is fairly
easy. Besides the
UpdatePanel, other controls that work similarly are the ASP.NET AJAX
Control Toolkit.
❑ Client-side classes — These classes provide additional functionality to the client-side browser.
This type of functionality is similar in concept to the base class libraries included in the .NET
framework. An example would be the whole
Sys.Net namespace along with the extensions to
the base JavaScript objects.
❑ Web services integration — This functionality allows a developer to use web services as the
communication channel between the web browser and the web server without having to under-
stand the differences between the MSXML component in IE and the
XmlHttpRequest object in
Firefox.
Packaging
The packaging of ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX can be fairly confusing. The basics of the packaging are:
❑ ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0 — The ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0, also referred to as the
RTM/Core code, is an independent download. This contains the functionality that will receive
support from Microsoft in the initial release of the product. The source code is available.
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