One week ago today, Microsoft officially released ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax. This includes the core components (Extensions), the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit and Futures January CTP. If you have been using an older version of this software or are new, I might hold off installing the official release! For a week now I have been finding nothing but bugs and issues with things that worked in the previous release but now are broken. I will keep adding to this post, but here is the first and major issues that I am seeing:

UpdatePanel and a Simple Trigger

One of the simplest bugs to reproduce is a trigger in the UpdatePanel. The code below shows an TextBox that is configured to cause a postback on the UpdatePanel when you press return. The code below works just fine.

<form id="form1" runat="server">
        <div>
            <asp:ScriptManager ID="SM" runat="server">
            </asp:ScriptManager>
            <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
            <asp:UpdatePanel ID="UpdatePanel1" runat="server" UpdateMode="Conditional">
                <ContentTemplate>

                    Time:
                    <%= datetime.Now.ToString() %>
                </ContentTemplate>
                <Triggers>
                    <asp:AsyncPostBackTrigger ControlID="TextBox1" />
                </Triggers>
            </asp:UpdatePanel>
        </div>
    </form>

Simply add a TextBox to the ContentTemplate and the trigger no longer works!!!!

More To Come

I'm also having issues with ValidatorCalloutExtender inside of an ItemTempate, AutoCompleteExtender inside of an UpdatePanel and more. All worked 8 days ago!

Also, if you have already started an Ajax site before version 1.0 there are major migration issues with the web.config. In previous updates you could simply copy the web.config from a new 'AJAX Enabled Web Site'. For some reason, this no longer works. The only way I could get my sites working with 1.0, is to create a new AJAX site, and copy all of my code over to the new project. Go figure.

If you read the install requirements, they 'strongly' recommend installing SP1 of Visual Studio. Make sure you have something to do during this process. Depending on what machine I was updating it took anywhere from 1 to 3 hours!

I hope you all enjoyed the SoCal Rock & Roll Code Camp 2007 as much as I did. As promised, below are my slides and sample code. Those of you that live in San Diego, don't forget about my AJAX class at UCSD next semester that starts in May.

Also, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book: VSDN Tips & Tricks .NET Coding Standards, so I can buy an Intel based MAC

Why You Need .NET Coding Standards

NET Coding Standards & Best Practices200701.zip (329.65 KB) (slides)

Programming AJAX with the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit

Programming AJAX with ASP.NET AJAX200701.zip (393.22 KB) (slides)

AjaxExample200701.zip (523.38 KB) (code)

See you next year!

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I just stumbled across this cool FREE website that will monitor your upsite for you called Montastic. It's 100% free, no ad, no spam. Can't beat that deal! It checks your site about every 10 mintues from two different locations. You can monitor up to 100 sites. It even has an RSS feed for your list of sites!

Below are my slides and demo code for the "Programming AJAX with the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit" talk I did on January 2nd at the San Diego .NET Developers Group.

Sides: Ajax.pdf (494 KB)

Code: AjaxExample.zip (809.84 KB)

Don't forget about my class on the same subject starting this month at UCSD Extensions! Hope to see you there