The eXperT’s Voice ® in .

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Companion

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Foundations of

ASP.NET

ASP.NET AJAX
AJAX
Build AJAX Applications in ASP.NET

Robin Pars, Laurence Moroney,

and John Grieb
 Foundations of ASP.NET AJAX (2nd Edition) Moroney

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 Foundations of ASP.NET AJAX (2nd Edition) Moroney

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Foundations of ASP.NET
AJAX

Robin Pars, Laurence Moroney, and John Grieb

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 Foundations of ASP.NET AJAX (2nd Edition) Moroney

Foundations of ASP.NET AJAX

Copyright © 2007 by Robin Pars, Laurence Moroney, and John Grieb
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I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of Steve Irwin. May the world have more
people as knowledgeable, genuine, enthusiastic, benevolent, and compassionate as him.

—Robin Pars

This book is dedicated to Rebecca, my wonderful wife and constant supporter.

I just don’t know what I would do without her.
Also to Claudia and Christopher, the greatest daughter and son a guy could ask for!

—Laurence Moroney

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 Foundations of ASP.NET AJAX (2nd Edition) Moroney

Contents at a Glance
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About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

About the Technical Reviewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

■CHAPTER 1 Introducing AJAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

■CHAPTER 2 Taking AJAX to the Next Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
■CHAPTER 3 The Microsoft AJAX Library: Making Client-Side
JavaScript Easier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
■CHAPTER 4 ASP.NET AJAX Client Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
■CHAPTER 5 Introducing Server Controls in ASP.NET AJAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
■CHAPTER 6 Using Server Controls in ASP.NET AJAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
■CHAPTER 7 Using the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit (Part 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
■CHAPTER 8 Using the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit (Part 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
■CHAPTER 9 AJAX-Style Mapping Using the Virtual Earth SDK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
■CHAPTER 10 Building a Sample Application Using ASP.NET AJAX . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

■INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

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 Foundations of ASP.NET AJAX (2nd Edition) Moroney

Contents
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About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

About the Technical Reviewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

■CHAPTER 1 Introducing AJAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Delving into the History of Web Application Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Thin Client Applications Save the Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
AJAX Enters the Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Using the XMLHttpRequest Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Using Visual Studio 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Seeing a Simple Example in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

■CHAPTER 2 Taking AJAX to the Next Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Introducing ASP.NET 2.0 Server Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Web Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Introducing the ASP.NET AJAX Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
An Overview of the AJAX Library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Microsoft AJAX Library and Web Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
An Overview of the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

vii

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 Foundations of ASP.NET AJAX (2nd Edition) Moroney
viii ■CONTENTS

■CHAPTER 3 The Microsoft AJAX Library: Making Client-Side

JavaScript Easier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
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JavaScript with the Microsoft AJAX Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Downloading and Installing ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extension 1.0 . . . . . 32
Creating Your First AJAX Application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Adding a Custom JavaScript Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Using the AJAX Script Manager to Deliver Your Custom Class. . . . . 37
Coding and Running the Application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Using Namespaces and Classes in JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Using Inheritance in JavaScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Implementing Interfaces in JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Accessing Server Resources from JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

■CHAPTER 4 ASP.NET AJAX Client Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

JavaScript Type Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Array and Boolean Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Date Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Error Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Number Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Object Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
String Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
The Sys Namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Sys.Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Sys.Component and Client Component Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Sys.UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Sys.UI.DomElement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Sys.UI.DomEvent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Global Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Other Commonly Used Classes in the Sys Namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Sys.Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Sys.StringBuilder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

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