Programming Atlas

Chapter 14. Atlas Control Toolkit

Because ASP.NET 2.0 Atlas is a work in progress, some developers will be reluctant to use it while it is still in beta—despite of the availability of a Go Live license—since there is always the possibility that changes introduced in new versions will limit backward compatibility.

The Atlas Control Toolkit was created to mitigate this possibility and to allow both Microsoft and the ASP.NET community to easily add noncore functionality to the framework, independent of the Atlas update cycle. The toolkit will ultimately contain 50 to 100 Atlas controls from Microsoft. The software, including source code, has been released under a shared source license (the Microsoft Permissive License, also known as MS-PL). Microsoft has also created a site where company developers and community members can add new functionality. (See the section "For Further Reading" at the end of this chapter.)

This chapter shows how to install and use the Atlas Control Toolkit, and it introduces you to some of the more useful controls the toolkit contains. However, because the toolkit will continue to evolve, with new controls and functionality being added from month to month, the information here can change quite quickly, so you should always check the Atlas Controls Toolkit site for the latest information (See the section "For Further Reading" at the end of this chapter.)

We’ll conclude the chapter by demonstrating how you can create your own controls, which you can then use in any ...