ASP.NET AJAX in .NET 3.5 and VS 2008 - Orcas New Features

Hi,

This blog post summarizes the new features of ASP.Net 3.5 and VS 2008 IDE.

Below are the new features been introduced.

§ VS 2008 Multi-Targeting Support

§ VS 2008 JavaScript Intellisense

§ VS 2008 JavaScript Debugging

§ VS 2008 Code Editing Improvements

§ VS 2008 Nested Master Page Support - - Nothing to add. Read Post.

§ VS 2008 Web Designer and CSS Improvements

§ VS 2008 Vertical Split View Support - Nothing to add. Read Post.

§ VS 2008 ASP.NET AJAX Control Extenders

§ ASP.NET ListView Control (Part 1: Building a Product Listing Page with Pure CSS)

§ ASP.NET AJAX in .NET 3.5 and VS 2008

Before we go further let’s have a quick view.

Compatibility - From VS 2005 to VS 2008 and .NET Framework 2.0 to 3.5?

Though .NET Framework 3.5 is a super compatible upgrade from .NET 2.0, it does not require you to change any code in order to target the new framework version. Only non-breaking modifications to existing .NET assemblies have been made in the .NET 3.5 release, and wherever possible added new features in separate assemblies to minimize the chance of breaking changes.

Also no project model or build changes have been made with VS 2008. Both the "web site" and "web application project" models will be fully supported going forward.

ASP.NET AJAX in .NET 3.5 and VS 2008

Here I have been putting major points only. For other details, how it works please folow the below link.

Reference: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/07/30/asp-net-ajax-in-net-3-5-and-vs-2008.aspx

AJAX included in ASP.NET 3.5 – New Features

· In ASP.NET 2.0, AJAX 1.0 shipped as a separate download to install.

· But with the .NET Framework 3.5 release, all of these features are built-in with ASP.NET - Which means you no separate download and installation.

· When you create a new ASP.NET application or web-site in VS 2008 that targets the .NET 3.5 framework, VS will Automatically Add The Appropriate Ajax Registrations in your web.config file and the core ASP.NET AJAX server controls will show up in your toolbox.

· The version of ASP.NET AJAX that ships with .NET 3.5 has a number of nice improvements to it - including

o Support for using UpdatePanels with WebParts,

o Support for WCF based JSON end-points,

o Support for using the ASP.NET Profile, Role and Login Application Services using JavaScript, and

o A number of bug fixes and performance improvements.

Side By Side Versioning

· In ASP.NET 2.0 – The implmentation of ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 lives in V1.0 of the System.Web.Extensions.dll assembly.

· In ASP.NET 3.5 – The implmentation of ASP.NET AJAX lives in V3.5 of the System.Web.Extensions.dll assembly.

<configSections>

<sectionGroup name="system.web.extensions" type="System.Web.Configuration.SystemWebExtensionsSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0,

Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">

</sectionGroup>

</configSection>

In ASP.Net 2.0 - Version= 1.0.61025.0

In ASP.Net 3.5 - Version= 3.5.0.0

· ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 and .NET 3.5 can both be installed side-by-side on the same machine.

· The V3.5 of System.Web.Extensions.dll is a fully compatible super-set of the 1.0 implementation (which means you don't need to change any code in order to use it).

· Each ASP.NET application on a machine can choose which version of ASP.NET AJAX they want to build and run against.

· You will be able to use VS 2008 to target ASP.NET AJAX 3.5 applications, as well as to use the new VS 2008 multi-targeting support to build ASP.NET 2.0 applications that use ASP.NET AJAX 1.0

Upgrading ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Applications to use ASP.NET AJAX 3.5

· As such nothing is required except to open the Web Site Project in VS 2008.

· However, if any problem then check the post.

· To work with AJAX Control Toolkit in ASP.Net 3.5, required is to install the toolkit for 3.5 from here.

Note: When you use VS 2008 to open an existing ASP.NET 2.0 application that uses ASP.NET AJAX 1.0, you can alternatively choose not to upgrade it to .NET 3.5, and instead use the new multi-targeting features of VS 2008 to build it using ASP.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET AJAX 1.0.

Hope this helps.

Thanks & Regards,

Arun Manglick || Tech Lead