Asp ajax supports internet explorer

Using the ASP.NET Ajax Server Controls❘841

➤ Microsoft Ajax Library — This is a client - side JavaScript framework that does not depend on ASP.NET on the server, so it can be used with other server - side technologies. Using (or even modifying) the Library source code for free is permitted by the New BSD License .

➤ ASP.NET Ajax Control Toolkit — This is an Open Source project built on top of the Microsoft Ajax Library that provides more than 40 reusable controls and control extenders. It is a joint effort between Microsoft and the community, and new controls are continually added to the Toolkit.

If you have chosen ASP.NET (because you liked the higher abstraction level it gives you to create a server - side web application) and Visual Studio (because you liked its productivity features), using the XMLHttpRequest object makes you feel like being thrown back to the Stone Age. Microsoft felt that pain, and created the ASP.NET Ajax Extensions component (that later became an integral part of ASP.NET) to provide the same high - level control - centric approach for the basic (but most common) Ajax scenarios in ASP.NET.

842❘CHAPTER 19ASP.NET AJAX IMPROVEMENTS

Sometimes you want to send the whole page or content of an UpdatePanel to the server at defi ned intervals. You can use the Timer control that triggers an event on the client that you can process on the server.

To see a simple scenario with these controls, create an ASPX page with a GridView and a SqlDataSource control that retrieves records from the Customer table of the Northwind database.

Code fi le [2 - ServerControls\Default.aspx] available for download at Wrox.com

If you compile and try this in a browser, you fi nd that it works as expected — the records are displayed on pages and you can sort them. However, every time you click on a column header or a page number, the whole page is refreshed. You will notice the quick fl icker and that you lose your scroll context.