Ajaxus place on the net

Today at .Net Developers Journal was posted this interesting article by Judy Lee. Check it out here as Judy makes fast comparison of these products related to their projects. At the bottom is the final conclusion table.
Today, RIA technology is widely used, also referred to as Rich Internet Clients (RICs). RICs provide the usability, responsiveness, and reuse of client/server applications with the deployment, manageability, and availability of a traditional Web application. Many websites are using DHTML and AJAX technology in HTML pages. Another very popular technology is Flash. How about Silverlight, though?

RIAs offer the flexibility and ease of use of an intelligent desktop application, and add the broad reach of traditional web applications with an entirely new kind of web experience that is engaging, interactive, lightweight, and flexible.

DHTML and AJAX

We used DHTML and AJAX technology in HTML pages in some of our .NET outsourced projects. However, we encountered problems of browser incompatibility. (For example, DOM is quite different in IE and in Safari.)

Although it is possible to make this kind of web application work in all browsers, it will take the developer much time and it is very difficult to maintain when the browsers update.

Flash

Another very popular technology is Flash, it doesn’t have any browsers compatibility problems, but it’s very hard to integrate with .NET. Integrating Flash demands that .NET developers make a special effort, and since our specialty is .NET software outsourcing, Flash is not the best choice for us.

Silverlight

Silverlight is a cross browser technology, so there’s no browser compatibility problem. Plus it integrates with .NET very well, so it is easier to use and develop. Silverlight does not have controls at present, but in version 2.0, many controls will be released for Web designers. Those controls will make Web development easier and faster.

Based on the features supported by Silverlight (see our chart below) more web page elements and properties can be controlled than DHTML&AJAX. Silverlight also offers a good user experiences.

Source

Quite interesting study from Coach Wei, of Nexaweb and Apache:

Introduction:
Ajax application performance largely depends on the performance of JavaScript execution and browser DOM operations. I’ve heard various people saying various things about Ajax performance. Some people say JavaScript is just too slow. Some people say that the problem is not JavaScript but rather Browser DOM being too slow. Some people would then argue that browser DOM operations are fine. The problem is Internet Explorer that is unbelievably slow.

More specifically, here is a list of Ajax performance issues:
1. Array performance on all browsers in general
2. HTML DOM performance in general
3. Calculating Computed Box Model and Style
4. FireFox: “eval”, Object Creation and “in” Operation
5. “String” Manipulation Performance on IE
6. Safari: “pop” Operation Performance

Check out the whole study here

With this tool you can easily create book covers with a template similar to the one used by O’Reilly Press. Yesterday with just few click I have created this one:

Check it out here

Once again Microsoft brings some knowledge to the masses This time its free e-books. All the headings speak for them selfs and with few words these books are MUST HAVE for every developer. Only few chapters are included in pdf’s as you are encouraged to buy them! Here is the content:

Introducing Microsoft LINQ by Paolo Pialorsi and Marco Russo ISBN: 9780735623910 * Chapter 1: LINQ Introduction * Chapter 2: C# Language Features * Chapter 3: Visual Basic 9.0 Language Features * Chapter 4: LINQ Syntax Fundamentals * Chapter 5: LINQ to ADO.NET * Chapter 6: LINQ to XML

Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX by Dino Esposito ISBN: 9780735624139 * Chapter 1: The AJAX Revolution * Chapter 5: The AJAX Control Toolkit

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 by Laurence Moroney ISBN: 9780735625396 * Chapter 1: Silverlight and User Experience * Chapter 5: Programming Silverlight with JavaScript

Log into Microsoft Press home page for more info here

If you are familiar with Aptana, then you will enjoy this news. Modern web sites and applications use Ajax to create engaging user experiences: the HTML and CSS are set in motion using JavaScript running in the browser and calling back the server. To achieve this, the server needs to prepare the web page appropriately, and to know what to do when the JavaScript calls it. But the server knows nothing about the HTML and CSS DOM, nor how to handle JavaScript data, and you can’t code it in JavaScript…

…Jaxer changes all that. Jaxer is the world’s first true Ajax server. HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are native to Jaxer, as are XMLHttpRequests, JSON, DOM scripting, etc. And as a server it offers access to databases, files, and networking, as well as logging, process management, scalability, security, integration APIs, and extensibility.

Some of the key features that Jaxer provide are:

- Write entire applications or presentation layers in Ajax
- Share validation code on the browser and server
- Full DOM and JavaScript on the server
- Database, file, and socket access from JavaScript
- Seamless communications between browser and server
- Open-source, standards-based, and uses the APIs you already know
- Access existing pages written in other languages like PHP, Java, or Ruby on Rails

Here is an Ajaxians post
Here is Jaxer web site

Brad Abrams just converted the existing Web Site Starter Kit from the VS 2005 web site to use the new dot Net 3.5 framework, LINQ and Ajax extenders. Here is the full source code for that.

Here are some of the key points from his post:

- VS2008 Can Target .NET Framework 2.0
- Upgrade to ASP.NET 3.5 and Take Advantage of Linq
- Ajax Enabling the Site
- Tricking out the site with the Ajax Control Toolkit

read the whole post here

qooxdoo is a comprehensive and innovative Ajax application framework. Leveraging object-oriented JavaScript allows developers to build impressive cross-browser applications. No HTML, CSS nor DOM knowledge is needed. qooxdoo includes a platform-independent development tool chain, a state-of-the-art GUI toolkit and an advanced client-server communication layer. It is Open Source under an LGPL/EPL dual license.

Besides the many bugfixes, there are a few new features to mention:

* Cross-browser logging features based on Firebug Lite
* A source-code validation utility similar to JSLint, executed by a simple “make lint”
* Re-worked feedreader to demonstrate best practices for application development
* Early preview of the next-generation build tool generator2.

read source
view demo

On the 2nd anniversary of jQuery’s release there is a brand new release. This is primarily a bug fix release for jQuery 1.2.

Primarily, this has been a bug fix and optimization release. They landed over 120 bug fixes and our test suite now has over 1157 tests in it!

300% Speed Improvements to $(DOMElement)

Here’s a quick peak at some of the speed jumps that you can expect in all the major browsers:
Browser 1.2.1 (ms) 1.2.2 (ms)
Firefox 2 0.041 0.015
Firefox 3 0.033 0.01
Safari 3 0.017 0.005
Opera 9 0.023 0.004
Internet Explorer 6 0.04 0.03

read the source

I love reading great articles! The one I am posting today is simply deep and marvelous! Its written by the well known Jeff Prosise and is included in the last issue of MSDN Magazine.
In this article Jeff explains how to use drag and drop using ASP.NET Ajax Extensions with new Visual Studio. Here is a small part of it, at the end there is a link to the whole article:

AJAX has revolutionized Web user interfaces, and ASP.NET AJAX has made AJAX available to the Visual Studio® users. It comes in three separate downloads: ASP.NET AJAX Extensions (asp.net/ajax/downloads), which provides the core, fully tested set of AJAX functionality; ASP.NET AJAX Futures (asp.net/downloads/futures), which contains experimental features on which the product group wants feedback; and the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit (asp.net/ajax/ajaxcontroltoolkit/samples), which provides a grab bag of AJAX controls as well as an SDK for building controls of your own.

Of the three, the Futures release has garnered the least attention from the developer community. That’s unfortunate because, more than providing a glimpse into what future versions of ASP.NET AJAX might look like, the Futures Community Technology Preview (CTP) is chock full of features that can be used to build cutting-edge Web apps today. A case in point is drag-and-drop.

Hidden away inside the Futures PreviewDragDrop.js file lies support for rich, browser-based drag-and-drop user interfaces. The model it uses is patterned after the old OLE drag-drop model, in which drag sources implement the IDragSource interface, drop targets implement the IDropTarget interface, and the system provides a drag-drop manager to connect drag sources to drop targets. The Futures drag-drop manager is an instance of a JavaScript class named Sys.Preview.UI._DragDropManager, which is automatically instantiated and made available through a global variable named Sys.Preview.UI.DragDropManager.

For months now, I’ve been meaning to write a sample showing how to use PreviewDragDrop.js to implement real drag-drop, featuring custom drag sourcing and custom drop targeting. I finally got around to it, and the results are pretty cool. I learned quite a lot about DragDropManager in the process, including how to enhance it by adding support for custom drag visuals. Once you’re familiar with the model (and comfortable with the concept of deriving classes and implementing interfaces in JavaScript), DragDropManager opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Web UIs.
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Few days ago from Microsoft released ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP Preview. This release brings additional runtime functionality to ASP.NET and .NET 3.5. You can download it here.

Here is what this release includes:

* ASP.NET AJAX Improvements: New ASP.NET AJAX features in the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions release include better browser history support (back/forward button integration, and server-side history management support), improved AJAX content linking support with permalinks, and additional JavaScript library improvements.

* ASP.NET MVC: This model view controller (MVC) framework for ASP.NET provides a structured model that enables a clear separation of concerns within web applications, and makes it easier to unit test your code and support a TDD workflow. It also helps provide more control over the URLs you publish in your applications, and more control over the HTML that is emitted from them.

* ASP.NET Dynamic Data Support: The ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions release delivers new features that enable faster creation of data driven web sites. It provides a rich scaffolding framework, and will enable rapid data driven site development using both ASP.NET WebForms and ASP.NET MVC.

* ASP.NET Silverlight Support: With the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions release we’ll deliver support for easily integrating Silverlight within your ASP.NET applications. Included will be new controls that make it easy to integrate Silverlight video/media and interactive content within your sites.

* ADO.NET Data Services: In parallel with the ASP.NET Extensions release we will also be releasing the ADO.NET Entity Framework. This provides a modeling framework that enables developers to define a conceptual model of a database schema that closely aligns to a real world view of the information. We will also be shipping a new set of data services (codename “Astoria”) that make it easy to expose REST based API endpoints from within your ASP.NET applications.

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