Programming Atlas

Ajax.NET

Michael Schwarz, a German MVP for ASP and ASP.NET, published his free Ajax.NET library some time ago. It offers Ajax functionality (data exchange 316ith the server, including serialization of many data types), client callbacks, and some advanced features. The source code for Ajax.NET was eventually released to the public (see http://weblogs.asp.net/mschwarz/archive/2005/08/11/422293.aspx) and development on the library stopped. However, the code has since been moved into the BorgWorX project (see http://www.borgworx.net). Schwarz went on to work on Ajax.NET Professional (http://www.ajaxpro.info), which is available under a closed-source license, but is still free. Ajax.NET and Ajax.NET Professional can both be used with ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0.

Migrating to Ajax.NET Professional

Using Ajax.NET Professional is quite similar to Ajax.NET, since most of the interfaces have not changed. One difference is the installation. Ajax.NET Professional supports both ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0, but all in one package. Therefore, the distribution archive contains two assemblies:

• AjaxPro.dll for ASP.NET 1.1

• AjaxPro.2.dll for ASP.NET 2.0

Apart from that, using the library is quite similar. Again, you have to add elements to your Web.config, but this time the virtual filename changes, as does the type. For ASP.NET 1.1, you use this directive:

<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <httpHandlers>
      <add verb="POST,GET" path="ajaxpro/*.ashx" type="AjaxPro.Ajax
HandlerFactory, AjaxPro" /> </httpHandlers> </system.web> ...