MieJowo.NET

Well, well, well ... After playing with the Beta release today, I am very overwhelmed with the changes that they made from CTP to this Beta 1.0 version.

First in order is of course the changes in web.config file. At first I tried to manually rewrite the web.config file by copy-pasting the code from the beta's web.config. It turns out that this approach caused me tons of problem. The most annoying one is that standard <asp:???> tags didn't get recognized (even I rebuild and rebuild the website). Then, I just erased my web.config  and copy the web.config file from the beta and add some lines like <connectionstrings> or <system.net> into my web.config file. After that, I followed the AjaxToolkit guide in modifying web.config and Voila! the page compiled successfully with no errors.

Second in order is modifying my codes. This is where I spend most of the time since there are a lot of codes that I need to rewrite(modify) in order to adapt to the beta release.

• Changing the prefix. The "atlas" prefix becomes "ajax" prefix and "atlasctk" becomes "ajaxToolKit". This is not much of a problem since my good friend (find&replaceAll) helps me save a lot of time.
• Create an extender instance for each Properties object of the toolkit. This is where I spend a lot of time to do copy-pasty-copy-paste-copy-paste.
  Example:
  

  <atlasToolkit:ConfirmButtonExtenderID="cbe1"runat="server"> 
      <atlasToolkit:ConfirmButtonProperties TargetControlID="LinkButton1" 
          ConfirmText="Delete Item?" /> 
      <atlasToolkit:ConfirmButtonProperties TargetControlID="LinkButton2" 
          ConfirmText="Update Item?" /> 
  </atlasToolkit:ConfirmButtonExtender>
  
  <!-- becomes -->
  
  <ajaxToolkit:ConfirmButtonExtender ID="cbe12" runat="server" 
      TargetControlID="LinkButton1"
      ConfirmText="Delete Item?" /> 
  <ajaxToolkit:ConfirmButtonExtender ID="cbe2" runat="server"
      TargetControlID="LinkButton2"
      ConfirmText="UpdateItem?" />

  
  
  

          Yes, no more properties, just extender. Simplicity works well here.
          But, yikes, this is a lot of work!

• More changes for controltoolkit. Since my project is using accordion control from toolkit I notice that now the AccodionPane needs runat="server" attribute.
  
• Changes in the "atlas" script that impact my code:
  custom prefix is now supported
  <script type="text/xmlscript">
  <page xmlns:script="http://schemas.microsoft.com/xmlscript/
  2005" xmlns:"JavaScript: Sys.UI,Sys">
  
  yet somehow, I couldn't manage to use ajax-script anymore, eventhought I append Sys.Preview and Sys.Preview.UI namespace inside the <page xmlns: >. Help, anyone!?
  
  next is
  <setProperty ... > becomes <setPropertyAction>
  
  
• Ajax from javascript:
  Sys.UI.Button becomes Sys.UI.Preview.Button
  Sys.UI.Label becomes Sys.UI.Preview.Label
  Sys.UI.HyperLink becomes Sys.UI.Preview.HyperLink
  and so on ... but...
  Sys.UI.Select becomes Sys.UI.Preview.Selector
  
  Not changing:
  Sys.UI.Control
  Sys.UI.VisibilityMode.collapse
  
  Other than that:
  instead: 
  var x = Sys.UI.Button($('myButton'));
  x.click.add(myClickHandler);
  var y = Sys.UI.Select($('myDropDown'));
  y.selectionChanged.add(myClickHandler2);
  
  use this:
  var x = Sys.Preview.UI.Button($get('myButton'));
  x.add_click(myClickHandler);
  var y = Sys.Preview.UI.Selector($get('myDropDown'));
  y.add_selectionChanged(myClickHandler2);
  
  notice the difference?
  
• [ScriptService] or [ScriptMethod()] attribute & public and static for your proxy that needed by the javascript.
  
  for example instead of:
  [System.Web.Services.WebMethod]
  public AjaxControlToolkit.CascadingDropDownNameValue[] GetDropDownContentsPageMethod(string knownCategoryValues, string category)
  {
  return new DropDownListService().GetDropDownContents(knownCategoryValues, category);
  }
  
  you have to:
  1. Add [Microsoft.Web.Script.Services.ScriptMethod()]
  2. Make it public and static! It's a MUST!
  
  [System.Web.Services.WebMethod]
  [Microsoft.Web.Script.Services.ScriptMethod()]
  public static AjaxControlToolkit.CascadingDropDownNameValue[] GetDropDownContentsPageMethod(string knownCategoryValues, string category)
  {
  return new DropDownListService().GetDropDownContents(knownCategoryValues, category);
  }
  
  Other than that:
  I was using the GetDropDownContentsPageMethod (in the above code) in code-behind, but now I have to put the method at the aspx page level.
  
• NOT WORKING yet:
  My modalpopup that resides inside <itemtemplate> in <gridview> control does not work anymore. When I click the button that triggers the modal-popup the page just refreshed itself, and then the modal-popup works normal. Strange.

I love the performance gained by the beta release. My pages are more responsive, and they load very fast (eventhough the site is not precompiled). And surely, MS needs to write better documentation and better migration document. I feel that I get very confused reading them. There are value-add, ajax-core (RTM), clientFX, serverFX, and AJAX CTP itself in this release.  Which one control which? Which one support xml-script? Which one don't? Other than that, Intellisense is gone at the content page-level (just for standard asp tags) when using updatepanel in masterpage that wraps the contentplaceholder. One solution to this is to change the "asp" prefix for the Ajax controls back to "atlas". I hope they will fix this soon.

posted by a.wirayudha  # 8:32 AM