With the release of .NET 3.0 came four new technologies including Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows CardSpace and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).
Written by: Alessandro Gallo, David Barkol, Rama Krishna Vavilada
Pages: 1500
Publisher: Manning Publication
ISBN: 1933988142
Introduction
ASP.NET AJAX (or Atlas as it was called then) – the best so far has been Programming Atlas which was quite simply awesome.
ASP.NET AJAX in Action is the first book based on the RTM bits of ASP.NET AJAX and is written by a few very active community members (I’m sure you will recognize the name Alessandro Gallo – he’s written some articles for DotNetSlackers).
Scanning the table of contents it seems as though this book covers pretty much everything you need to know in order to make some significant progress with ASP.NET AJAX.
This book has a dedicated chapter to the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit Control – something which previous books on ASP.NET AJAX have either ignored or given poor coverage.
Note: In Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1 ASP.NET AJAX control library was a new project template added. For anyone who has created a control based on the Control Toolkit you will know you have a JS file in your assembly – VS Orcas Beta 1 supports intellisense (MS AJAX Library) for that JS file. This is a great aid.
The first half of the book
Before I start, this is a review of a pre-release version of the book so things may well change. I have not read all of the chapters as I assume some were still being finished off and thus not in my copy.
Chapter 1: Introducing ASP.NET AJAX
The first chapter is a general overview of ASP.NET AJAX – this is essential reading for anyone who is new to ASP.NET AJAX. A 10,000 ft view of a frameworks’ architecture is always a good idea and in this book it is also accompanied with some nice explanations about the separate components that make up the ASP.NET AJAX framework.
This book is targeted at beginners to intermediate users, so it’s no surprise to see in the first chapter that we are writing some simple code to whet the appetite of the reader – in this particular example the reader is treated to a first look at the UpdatePanel.
Chapter 2: First steps with the MS AJAX Library
When I talk to people about ASP.NET AJAX they seem to have this misconception that it merely comprises of a few server controls that you apply to existing ASP.NET server controls to achieve AJAX like functionality – this is true, however, the Micorosft AJAX Library is a large client side library of helper methods, classes etc that do all sorts of things from interacting with the DOM to network procedures (e.g. async requests).
It was great to see a chapter devoted to the client framework of ASP.NET AJAX, in order to master ASP.NET AJAX you must also look at the MS AJAX Library in-depth and this chapter provides the foundations for future learning.
Chapter 3: JavaScript for AJAX developers
This chapter is essential reading for anyone! MS AJAX Library introduces OO methodologies to the JavaScript world.
The chapter covers all of the major additions to the JavaScript world, including:
- Classes
- Inheritance
- Interfaces
- Enumerations
- Type reflection
- Events
Although I have read about this stuff in the context of the MS AJAX Library many times I found the explanations to be concise but also clear.
Chapter 4: Exploring the AJAX server extensions
For anyone that is interested in how to AJAX’ify their existing ASP.NET 2.0 controls then this chapter is for you!
This chapter features an overview of the ScriptManager control (rightly proclaimed as the “brains” of ASP.NET AJAX in the book) as well as an overview of partial page updates.
Note: A point of clarity with ASP.NET AJAX is that when using an UpdatePanel we still do a full postback to the server – that includes view state. The server page lifecycle is thus preserved – it’s nice to see that this book has emphasised that.
Chapter 6: Partial page rendering with UpdatePanels
Where did Chapter 5 go? It wasn’t ready at the time of review.
This chapter goes through all of the various properties of the UpdatePanel and its use. If you have come across ASP.NET AJAX before you’ve probably heard a lot about this control, why? Because it’s easy to use (as the authors point out) and apply AJAX functionality to existing ASP.NET 2.0 applications.
The second half of the book (more advanced concepts)
Chapter 7: Under the hood of the UpdatePanel
This chapter is invaluable; many have walked the planet oblivious to the PageRequestManager and its doings. I believe that this is the first book I’ve read that has dedicated a significant number of pages to this class...bravo!
Chapter 10: Developing with the AJAX Control Toolkit
For me this was the chapter I was most looking forward to, admittedly I’ve neglected the AJAX Toolkit having spent most of my time developing with the MS AJAX Library and server extensions...well now is a chance to redeem myself!
One of the most significant things about web 2.0 sites is the fact that they all tend to look good, and sometimes have the odd bit of visual magic, so it was nice to read about the animation support in the AJAX Toolkit backed up with a photo gallery example.
Note: for more on the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit see http://ajax.asp.net where you will find demos of each of the 20 + controls.
Chapter 11: XML-Script
If like me you were a little surprised to see xml-script (or Atlas script) disappear from the standard ASP.NET AJAX bits and put into the futures CTP then this chapter will go some way to soothing that deep rage you have. This chapter goes through the basics of how to enable xml-script and how to use it discussing actions and bindings en route.
Chapter 12: Drag and drop
No the authors aren’t talking about the Visual Studio IDE!
Drag and drop of web components in the browser seems to be a feature you either love or hate, and in fairness we only tend to hate it when it’s poorly implemented.
This chapter demonstrates a great use of drag and drop through a book shop application.
Summary
I enjoyed reading this book, for me it was by far the best introduction to ASP.NET AJAX. A big bonus of this book is that the text is all based on the RTM bits of ASP.NET AJAX so there’s no more “what the heck! It doesn’t work!” type reactions when trying out a code sample...which is nice.
My advice is that if you are totally new to ASP.NET AJAX and want to learn the basic to intermediate concepts of the framework then go for this book.
Definitely a 4/5.
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