A practical tutorial to using Microsoft AJAX to enhance the user
experience of your ASP.NET web applications covering the most up to date
versions of the AJAX tools. With ASP.NET AJAX (formerly known as ATLAS)
developers can quickly create rich and responsive web pages with
efficient server communication by simply adding a few server controls to
their pages. Because ASP.NET AJAX is integrated with ASP.NET, developers
have full access to the built-in ASP.NET 2.0 application services and
the entire .NET Framework. This book is the most practical and efficient
resource a reader can get to enter the exciting world of AJAX in
ASP.NET. Targeting the most recent version of the ASP.NET AJAX tools,
this book will teach you how to create faster, lighter, and richer web
applications by using the Microsoft AJAX technologies to their full
potential. Beginning with a hands-on tour of the basic technologies
associated with AJAX, JavaScript, XMLHttpRequest, JSON, and the DOM,
you'll move on to a crash course in the Microsoft AJAX tools. You'll
understand the architecture of the Microsoft AJAX components, how they
all fit together, and exactly what they can do for you. At every stage
of your journey, you'll be able to try out examples to illuminate the
theory, and consolidate your understanding. In addition to learning
about the client and server controls, you'll also see how to handle
errors and debug your ASP.NET AJAX applications. To get your client
pages interacting with your server, the Microsoft AJAX framework allows
you to consume web services on the client without having to worry about
the underlying protocol used for exchanging the data. You will see how
to create ASP.NET web services in practice, and consume them in your
AJAX applications. To get your client pages interacting with servers on
other domains, the Microsoft AJAX framework provides bridges that allow
you to make cross-domain calls seamlessly. This book shows you how this
works and how to implement it, including how to consume services from
Amazon's ECS (E-Commerce Services). Microsoft AJAX brings the power of
the ASP.NET data presentation server controls to the client, enhancing
the power and responsiveness of controls such as the GridView and
DetailsView. You will learn about using the data client controls to
create truly responsive web applications that interact seamlessly not
just with your servers and your data, but also with other servers and
other sources of data should you choose. This book is a practical
tutorial to get you confident and comfortable working with the Microsoft
AJAX suite. Packed with step-by-step examples and detailed explanations
of how the examples work, this book is the ideal first step into the
exciting world of AJAX in ASP.NET. This book is written for ASP.NET
developers who not only want to understand how Microsoft AJAX will
impact on the way they develop web applications, but also want to make
the transition to better, more responsive applications as easily as
possible. You will need access to either Visual Studio Web Developer
Express or Visual Studio .NET 2005. All the code examples are in C#.
