What about AJAX and Atlas ?

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2/14/2006 1:30:11 PM

Romulo

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What about AJAX and Atlas ?

Hi Joe.

I want to know what do you think about AJAX and Atlas?. In mojoPortal it is possible to work with them?, in mono ?.

Thanks in advance...

2/14/2006 2:02:09 PM

Joe Audette

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Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

Hi Romulo,

Well Atlas is going to be one implementation of AJAX, its looking very promising but we will see. My concern right now is its early editions are likely to change a lot before it is finally released. Once it is more finalized I know the mono team is interested in also implementing it. It will likely be built into the next version of .NET/ASP.NET currently code named Orcas so it will be very attractive at some point.

There are a lot of other free Ajax projects/tools/frameworks out there including the new Yahoo UI I blogged about today.

One thing you can count on is we will be taking advantage of Ajax techniques in mojoPortal to make the UI very interactive. Already we have a SmartDropdown control used in the Module Settings page to select a user to give edit permissions to. I used an Ajax technique using the Sarrissa project which is also a lightweight javas cript for doing cross browser Ajax. Because a site could potentially have thousands or more users it would not be feasible to populate a dropdown list with all the users, instead the SmartDropDown uses ajax to go get the users that match what you type. It only brings back a few records at a time using compact xml so it is pretty fast.

Cheers,

Joe

3/29/2006 2:28:13 PM

Ira Smith

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Ira Richard Smith

Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

Good to hear about the possibilities of AJAX and Atlas use. Now that there is an official release of Atlas out I am hoping to start working with it soon, initially in just straight up ASP.NET pages to learn about it.

3/29/2006 3:28:33 PM

Joe Audette

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Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

Yes I've already played with Atlas a little and it seems very easy to use. After the upcoming release of mojoPortal this weekend I will begin converting the existing mojoPortal modules to Web Parts and I will use Atlas to make the drag and drop for the web parts work in Firefox.

Scott Guthrie and David Barkol have some good posts about making web parts drag and drop work in Firefox using Atlas here:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/03/24/441044.aspx

Its going to be fun!

Cheers,

Joe

11/7/2006 5:05:54 AM

Alexander V. Yushchenko

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Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

I have downloaded mojoportal-2-1-4-atlaspak.zip and have some questions/notes regarding it:

1. The project codename 'Atlas' is now called 'ASP.NET AJAX' and is in the beta stage. Isn't it time to rename the pack and change AtlasPak-README.txt?

2. Could you please show me where "the license of Microsoft Atlas does not allow redistribution"? I just cannot find it on their web site...

11/7/2006 5:26:28 AM

Joe Audette

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Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

Yes, you are correct that it is time to update this to use the latest version. I will try to do this very soon (at least in svn), hopefully sometime today. Guess I'll rename it from AtlasPak to AJAX-Extensions-Pak.

When you install it on a Windows machine using the MSI download from MS, the license is presented during the install, and it still says you may not distribute the software, here is a fragment form the license of things you may not do:

"You may not
disclose the results of any benchmark tests of the software to any third party without Microsofts prior written approval;
work around any technical limitations in the software;
reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
publish the software for others to copy;
deploy the software on a standalone basis for others to access;
distribute the software;..."

Joe

11/7/2006 5:36:00 AM

Joe Audette

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Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

For clarification, I make it possible to use Atlas (now AJAX extensions) especially to make it possible to have drag and drop in web parts for Firefox.
Other developers may also use it in their custom modules, but I have no plans to start using it widely in mojoPortal. Though I am working on using AJAX techniques for a lot of things in mojoPortal to improve the UI experience, I will not be using the MS AJAX Extensions for this because I'm trying to avoid further barriers to Mono compatibility for the 2.x branch of mojoPortal. While the MS AJAX Extensions is very cool technology in my opinion, the end result is more important than which technology is used and there are plent of AJAX techniques that can be used to achieve the same result and work more easily on Mono.

I expect that in Q1 2007 the 2.x version of mojoPortal will be compatible with Mono and we will no longer have to maintain the 1.x version

Still there is nothing preventing developers from using the MS Extensions now in their own custom module development. I currently put the ScriptManager in MyPage.aspx, but developers who wish to use the MS AJAX Extensions more widely may need to move it from there into the layout.master file of their skin so it is available on any page.

Joe

11/7/2006 5:36:00 AM

Alexander V. Yushchenko

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Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

Really.
I hope these limitations are only for the beta-period.

11/7/2006 5:36:54 AM

Joe Audette

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Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

Yes, that is what I'm hoping too. I would like to be able to distribute a set of release files already configured to use it.

11/7/2006 11:18:49 AM

Joe Audette

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Re: What about AJAX and Atlas ?

svn/branches/joesandbox2 now is updated to use the new version of MS AJAX Extensions and this site is also updated to use it.

Still a little documentation changes yet to do.

Cheers,

Joe

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