James Senior's Blog

At the PDC (our dev conference) we release the Beta version of the ASP.NET Ajax Library and also donated it to the CodePlex Foundation as their first project.  For this version of the library we’ve focused on four areas of functionality:

Power for developers

• Build data-centric web apps using advanced client-side libraries and controls
• Keep your markup clean and standards-compliant with imperative coding
• Make it easier to code using JavaScript IntelliSense (autocomplete) in Visual Studio
• Keep it simple to load and execute your scripts using the advanced management and execution features of the Script Loader

Performance

• Use the Microsoft Ajax CDN for lightning-fast downloads of the Microsoft Ajax Library and jQuery
• Reduce the number of requests to the server using script combining in the Script Loader
• Reduce the size of your scripts using the Microsoft Ajax Minifier Tool

Interoperability

• Create apps that work across all browsers and any platform, including ASP.NET, PHP, and Ruby on Rails
• Use powerful jQuery selection syntax and Ajax Control Toolkit controls together
• Explore the code and make modifications -- it’s open source!

Extensibility

• Create your own controls by extending ones like the DataView class

Getting detailed about Performance

Dan Wahlin and I put together the following whitepaper that talks about how you can use the features in ASP.NET Ajax Library to speed up the performance of your web applications.  You can download the PDF here or read it below: