DotNetKicks.com - published ajax stories

How to pass Dictionary as a parameter to an ActionResult

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:48:07 GMT

I'm using jQuery to make an Ajax call using an Http Post in ASP.NET MVC. I would like to be able to pass a Dictionary of values. I finally figured out the best solution is to pass JSON via the Http Post and use a custom ModelBinder to convert the JSON to a Dictionary. One thing I did in my solution is created a JsonDictionary object that inherits from Dictionary so that I can attach the custom ModelBinder to the JsonDictionary type, and it wont cause any conflicts in the future if I use Dictionary as a ActionResult parameter later on for a different purpose than JSON.

UpdatePanel and Sys.Application.add_load Woes

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:50:46 GMT

The ScriptManager usually puts calls to Sys.Application.initialize at the end of a page, right before the ending form tag. For custom composite controls, however, this call can come before the script has been output for your custom control. If you try to use the ScriptManager to initialize your control, it won't initialize in Firefox 3, Opera 9, or Safari 3. Here's how you can work around it.

Never worry about ASP.NET AJAX's "d" again

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Since a lot of people are having trouble with it, I want to share one method you can use to completely isolate your code from the ".d" problem. In this post, I will show you how to detect the ".d" and how you can completely isolate your $.ajax success handler from it.

Sending DateTime Parameters from AJAX to WCF Operations (methods)

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:02:41 GMT

Dealing with DateTime formats and Time Zones between AJAX and WCF

Hey jQuery lovers, ASP.NET AJAX can do Ajax too!

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:32:19 GMT

Learn how to make Ajax requests easy with the ASP.NET AJAX client-side library.

JSON Hijacking

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:28:30 GMT

Phil talks about the dangers of JSON hijacking

ASP.NET Ajax - Script Combining and moving ScriptResource.axd's to Sta

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:25:30 GMT

I've got a little something I'm doing and I wanted to take control over some scripts that were being added by ASP.NET WebForms. Remember that ASP.NET WebForms is designed around a control/component model, so you don't get 100% control over your markup. When you drag a control onto the page in WebForms, you expect it to work.

Drag and Drop Categorized Item List with jQuery and ASP.NET MVC

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:20:43 GMT

How to drag items between categories (sections) and sections between columns using jQuery and ASP.NET MVC. Part 1 focuses on layout and using jQuery UI's sortable functionality.

Ajax survey 2009: jQuery and MS Ajax are almost tied

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:45:00 GMT

Simone posts the results of the survey about ajax adoption among .NET developers. jQuery gained 58% since 2007 and now is almost tied to the MS Ajax stack (Control toolkit and ajax core)

How to programmatically set a value of a watermarked TextBox via JS

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:36:52 GMT

One more article from the "AJAX Control Toolkit tips and tricks" series. Explains how to access (set or get) programmatically (via JavaScript) a value of an ASP.NET TextBox control that has a TextBoxWatemark extender from the AJAX Control Toolkit attached to it.

Developing Web 2.0 Portal using Asp.Net MVC, Microsoft Ajax Client Tem

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:40:38 GMT

...Check out the working portal at http://www.linksgrid.com... Where do we start? Well, I prefer to start with database. Portal database-design itself is very simple. We need to have containers for Widgets (basic building blocks of the portal), Tabs (logical grouping of Widgets) and Users (so that we can assign Widgets to users through tabs). Below is a simple relational diagram between these entities.

Web 2.0 Portal using Asp.Net MVC, Microsoft Ajax Client Templates and

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:37:06 GMT

A few years back when I saw web 2.0 Ajax start pages like netvibes I was fascinated by the Ajax capabilities and coolness in dynamic web portals. As an enthusiastic Asp.Net developer I always wanted to develop my own Ajax Portal. While searching on web I came across several implementations and samples. Two of those samples are worth mentioning here. First one is from HTML Goodies and other is from Omar Al Zabir. First one is mostly developed using plain old javascript, thus making it fairly complex to code and maintain. Though it lacks database implementation it can be added easily and server side php code can be replaced by Asp.Net webservices or page-methods. Later one is developed using cutting edge Asp.Net technologies, Omar did an excellent job implementing an Ajax web 2.0 portal using Asp.Net, you can read about it on Omar's blog. As this implementation uses Asp.Net update panels it can not be treated as pure Ajax solution...

Rebuilding The Google Blog Bar; jQuery-ed Version

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:43:23 GMT

A 4KB jQuery plugin instead of 118KB Google Blog Bar!! I have shown before how to use Google Blog Bar as related posts widget, But when I actually tried to use it on my site, I didn't like all these JavaScript/CSS files that I've to include. And since I already use jQuery -and who doesn't- I decided to rebuild the Blog Bar from scratch.

11 keystrokes that made my jQuery selector run 10x faster

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:15:00 GMT

An in-depth analysis of the performance concerns when using a popular jQuery selector and a couple ways to dramatically speed it up, including benchmarks.

Passing JSON objects in .NET 3.5

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:55:25 GMT

This article shows how simple it is to pass JSON objects from client to server and vice versa in .NET 3.5 and jQuery. Working demo is provided for better understanding of code.

AJAX Tab Container - Style Problem

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 07:35:02 GMT

Cause Since the release of ASP.Net 2.0, all the pages' DTD are set to XHTML 1.0 Transitional by default. Consequently, AJAX Control Toolkits were also created to adhere with standard. All the rendered AJAX controls will follow the said document type definition. As it turns out, our page

Rebranding Microsoft Virtual Earth To "Bing Maps for Enterprise"

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:33:11 GMT

Microsoft Virtual Earth now has a new name (and it's not Kumo or Kiev). First, a little background to ensure we're all on the same page. As of yesterday.. Microsoft Virtual Earth is now called "Bing Maps for Enterprise."

ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 and the ScriptManager Control

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:53:50 GMT

Learn to use ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 Preview 4 with the ScriptManager in ASP.NET 3.5. Also, learn the new features of the ScriptManager control in ASP.NET 4.0 (Beta 1).

Great Design Property Slider

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:03:34 GMT

Check out this really cool property slider, would be great to recreate in .net

Update Panels and JSON Alternatives

Sun, 31 May 2009 19:32:48 GMT

In most asp.net applications users experience post backs as a result of submit action by the client browsers. These post backs can be quite annoying when just a small part of the page needs to be refreshed. Update panels are designed to perform partial post back eliminating the need for doing a complete post back for updating a part of the page. But are these post backs truly partial? In this article we try to find out if Update panels actually improve performance by doing partial post backs or do they end up degrading it.

ASP.NET Ajax Control Toolkit animation example

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:23:47 GMT

The AnimationExtender is a simple extender that allows you to utilize the powerful animation framework with existing pages in an easy, declarative fashion. It plays animations whenever a specific event like OnLoad, OnClick, OnMouseOver, or OnMouseOut is raised by the target control.

A Degradable jQuery AJAX Email Form for ASP.NET MVC

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:45:10 GMT

Pretty much every web site on the Internet features a form for users to provide feedback via email to site owners. Migrating to ASP.NET MVC requires a slightly different approach to that used by Web Forms development, so this article looks at one way to implement a web site contact form using the MVC framework and jQuery that degrades nicely. AJAX functionality is said to be "degradable" if a way is provided for the process to work, even though users don't have Javascript available to them.

Passing complex types in AJAX calls using jQuery & Jayrock

Thu, 28 May 2009 06:33:40 GMT

The article is about passing complex objects to server using Data Transfer Objects (DTO). It is based on the article "Using complex types to make calling services less. complex" at Encosia.com. It is useful when you do not use ASP.NET AJAX but want to use jQuery and Jayrock for making AJAX calls.

ASP.NET 4.0 AJAX - Preview 4 - Data Binding

Wed, 27 May 2009 17:16:13 GMT

Throughout the course of my introductory posts on ASP.NET AJAX 4.0, we looked at the new DataView control as well as the Sys.Observer class, which brings the Observer pattern to plain JavaScript objects. The new ASP.NET AJAX release is very exciting offering powerful new features to take AJAX enabled applications to a new level. In this post, we'll look at another exciting feature of ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 known as "live bindings."

Display Progress Image in Ajax Autocomplete textbox using javascript

Wed, 27 May 2009 07:06:05 GMT

In this example i m going to describe how to add animated Progress Image inside Ajax Auto complete extender textbox to represent loading of data. For achieving this functionality i am using two different approaches for different versions of AjaxControlToolkit.dll