AJAX.net vs. Atlas

[darrel]

I'm going to be diving into ASP.net 2.0 on a small project. I'd also like to
use it as an excuse to start playing with some AJAX techniques.

So, that leads to the obvious question: AJAX.net vs. Atlas?

Anyone have any opinions on that?

It looks like Atlas is still considered 'beta' so perhaps that's one strike
against it.

This mini-Q&A seems to ignore the fact that AJAX isn't necessarily a
'graceful degredation' concept:

http://weblogs.asp.net/despos/archive/2005/11/09.aspx

Granted, I'm not sure if AJAX.net is any different in terms of it's scope of
support (though, in fairness, Live.com seems to work great in Firefox)

On the other hand, Atlas is a free framework, and ajax.net, while free,
appearst to be moving into the commercial realm with the pro version.

I don't want to go all nuts with AJAX. I'm still a big fan of 'progressive
enhancement' and accessibility issues and likely won't be using AJAX too
much for the front-end (if at all). I'll mainly be using it on the admin
side using things like drag-n-drop to handle record sorting and the like.

-Darrel

 

[Karl Seguin [MVP]]

Atlas is more than just AJAX.NET. That said, I far prefer AJAX.NET because
it's lightweight and does what I want/need.

Atlas isn't only an asychronous library, but a complete JavaScript framework
ala Prototype (the .NET team says they go far beyond prototype, but I
haven't explored either enough to say for sure.

Karl

 

[Guest]

Atlas has a golive license now so it would be appropriate for ASP.NET 2.0
sites.
The only issue I have with AJAX.NET is that it breaks the MS page model by
using external handlers that need to be configured in web.config, thereby
breaking the stateful page in the callback (e.g., no access to page state).

Two alternatives that are not only much more lightweight than AJAX.NET but
also do not require external handlers are Anthem.NET and MagicAjax. Both are
available on sourceforge.net
Peter

 

[Jarod]

I'm going to be diving into ASP.net 2.0 on a small project. I'd also like

to use it as an excuse to start playing with some AJAX techniques.

So, that leads to the obvious question: AJAX.net vs. Atlas?

Anyone have any opinions on that?

Atlas allows you to use AJAX without using Javascript Take a look at
March CTP. You put updatePanel with gridView and the gridView is now with
full AJAX support. And your page on the server works as if there where
normal postbacks so I believe it's pretty easy to use Atlas. Is it light or
not... will your code be lighter and more stable ?
Jarod

 

[darrel]

Atlas allows you to use AJAX without using Javascript Take a look at

March CTP. You put updatePanel with gridView and the gridView is now with
full AJAX support. And your page on the server works as if there where
normal postbacks so I believe it's pretty easy to use Atlas. Is it light
or not... will your code be lighter and more stable ?

Hmm...does it REQUIRE that you use the built in controls? Ie, do I have to
use a gridView if I want to sort items with AJAX or can I apply it to my own
control's output?

-Darrel

 

[Steve C. Orr [MVP, MCSD]]

If you're not afraid of a little JavaScript then I think you should start
with the basic free AJAX functionality that comes with ASP.NET 2.0. For
simple things like you're talking about it's a nice, reasonably simple
solution. Here are the details:
http://SteveOrr.net/articles/Ajax.aspx

As Atlas nears final release it will be more worthwhile to learn how it
works, but right now its kind of a moving target so you might not want to
spend time learning a technology that's prone to change so quickly & soon.

 

[Joerg Jooss]

Thus wrote darrel,

Hmm...does it REQUIRE that you use the built in controls? Ie, do I
have to use a gridView if I want to sort items with AJAX or can I
apply it to my own control's output?

I'd expect that extender controls would work with all kinds of controls,
assuming the extended capablity isn't dependent on some control specific
feature, interface, etc.

Cheers,

 

[Trapulo]

I think that Anthem is better, and it's open source while Ajax.net not. I
tried the latter before switch to Anthem, and I think Anthem is a lot
better.

 

[darrel]

I think that Anthem is better, and it's open source while Ajax.net not. I

tried the latter before switch to Anthem, and I think Anthem is a lot
better.

Thanks, Trapulo. I'm always a fan of Open Source in the .net world.

-Darrel