The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit is a set of controls and extenders designed to help ASP.NET developers easily integrate rich client UI features into their Web applications. As a community effort, the toolkit contains controls written by Microsoft and non-Microsoft developers who have joined forces to create a powerful, shared-source library for all to use. Learn how to speed up your development by integrating toolkit components into your applications.

2. Shawn Burke
Director
Microsoft Corporation
SBurke@Microsoft.com

3. Session Objectives:
Introduce the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit
Outline how it works on top of ASP.NET AJAX
Demonstrate how to add to an existing web site
Outline Toolkit architecture basics
Detail some core functionality areas
Demonstrate further enhancements
The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit integrates seamlessly with
ASP.NET and simplifies AJAX development for page authors
and script developers

4. Make it easy for server-side developers to add AJAX
functionality to their websites
Make it easy for client-side developers to write AJAX
components
Get users excited about writing ASP.NET AJAX components
Create a rich library of AJAX components
Establish a transparent development model
Enable the community to guide the Toolkit by voting for work
items
Have fun!

5. A set of components designed to allow ASP.NET developers to easily improve
client side UI
“Scott Hanselman had jokingly called using these AJAX controls “cheating” … since they don’t
require that you write any client-JavaScript for most common scenarios.” – Scott Guthrie
A framework for building and deploying AJAX-enabled components and
controls
A Shared-Source effort that brings together the best of the community and
Microsoft to create a compelling set of best-practices
Joint effort of 3 Microsoft team members and ~14 external contributors
CodePlex makes everything transparent
Users can download code for any check-in
Users can view work items and create new ones
Users vote for work items – popular requests get fixed first!

7. Cross-browser support (the Toolkit supports what ASP.NET
AJAX supports)
IE 6
IE 7
Firefox
Safari
Opera
Plays nicely with other AJAX Frameworks
Extenders, Controls, and Behaviors
Code and official releases available at
http://www.CodePlex.com/

8. The Toolkit is built on top of the ASP.NET AJAX Core
Visual Studio Templates
AJAX Control Toolkit Components
ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit Base Classes (.NET & JavaScript)
ASP.NET AJAX Server Extensions
ASP.NET AJAX Library Framework
ASP.NET 2.0

9. Easily enhance existing websites (or create new ones)
34 AJAX-enabled components
JavaScript skills not required for most scenarios
Drag-and-drop design experience
Will be improved further in Orcas
Easily deployed to website’s BIN directory
Included source allows customization and/or fixes by
customers

10. Creating An Extender:
// Create an extender in code markup -->
<!-- Create an extender in
MyExtender ex1 = new MyExtender();
<cc1:MyExtender runat=“server”
ex1.TargetControlID = “TextBox1”;
TargetControlID=“TextBox1”
ex1.MyStringProp = “Hello”;
MyStringProp=“Hello”
ex1.MyIntProp = 23;
MyIntProp=“23” />
Page.Add(ex1);

11. No Javascript Required!

12. Flexible animation package for client side
Easily add professional-grade effects to your components
About 20 different animations that can be run alone, serially, or
in parallel
Can be run conditionally
Action can be specified by script, too
Declare using code-behind or XML in the ASPX page
Work under way to make it easy to animate most kinds of
control activity
Popup/hide
Expand/collapse

13. Disabled in Debug builds to make debugging and
development easier
Automatically enabled for Retail builds to keep the
download size of JavaScript files down
Retail scripts automatically cached by the browser
Removes unnecessary whitespace
Removes all code comments
Support for keeping important comments with “////”
Toolkit scripts shrink by over 50% on average!
Automatic GZIP then shrinks them even more

14. Latest Toolkit has framework for 14 different languages
Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Jap
anese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), and
Chinese (Traditional)
Looks up strings by page/browser’s language and culture – falls
back automatically for missing strings
English is the default language and contains all strings
By popular demand, the string “Today” in Calendar is localized to all
14 languages
Users can easily add additional languages/translations by
editing the .NET-standard .RESX files
Native speakers are welcome to help with translations

15. Cross-browser support for all Toolkit controls
Controls behave the same on all browsers
Except where browser/platform limitations prevent it
Try to keep code as free of special-cases as possible
Nearly all Toolkit controls are XHTML compliant in our latest
release
As reported by the W3C’s Markup Validation Service
Remaining changes have open work items to be fixed
Accessibility improvements are under way
Currently few standards here
Often a combination of page and extender changes

16. Primary focus on enabling easy AJAX component development
“Plumbing” code is included in templates so you don’t have to
write it!
Lots of added functionality and features in the base class
Focus on preserving ASP.NET AJAX techniques and practices
Writing code with the Toolkit leverages ASP.NET AJAX so you’re not
learning different concepts
Many support alternatives (forums, community, source
code, etc.)

18. Non-Microsoft Contributors
Have ~14 already
Responsible for many of the shipping controls
Help with work items is also great
New patching tool allows public fix submissions
Work on accessibility, localization/translation, and other
core pieces
The Toolkit will evolve as ASP.NET AJAX continues to
evolve

19. CodePlex
ASP.NET Forums
http://blogs.msdn.com/SBurke
sburke@microsoft.com

21. © 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it
should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

22. Example of a slide with a subhead
Set the slide title in “title case”
Set subheads in “sentence case”
Generally set subhead to 40pt or smaller so it will fit on a
single line
The subhead color is defined for this template but must be
selected; In PowerPoint 2007, it is the fifth font color from the
right

23. Font, size, and color for text have been formatted for you
in the Slide Master
Use the color palette shown below
See next slide for additional guidelines
Sample Fill Sample Fill Sample Fill
Sample Fill Sample Fill Sample Fill

24. Name
Title
Group

26. Name
Title
Group

27. Name
Title
Group

30. © 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions,
it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.