Nikhil Kothari's Weblog : Atlas Unveiled

Comments

12 comments have been posted.

Matthias Hertel

Posted on 9/13/2005 @ 12:42 PM

I see a lot of fantasic things going on. I wished there where Javascript proxies for along time and they finally come... (see http://www.codeproject.com/soap/JavaScriptProxy_01.asp)
Hurra !

Steve

Posted on 9/13/2005 @ 1:14 PM

http://atlas.asp.net/quickstart/util/srcview.aspx?path=/atlas/samples/controls/simple_control.src

I get nothing when I goto this link from the Atlas quickstart

Eugenio Serrano

Posted on 9/13/2005 @ 2:35 PM

Congratulations Nikhil !!

I download the project right now !

Regards from Argentina

Steve

Posted on 9/13/2005 @ 6:08 PM

When I review this - I see that we are adding more html tags and writing javascript. I was under the impression that in .NET we would move more to coding in the code behind with C# and above working in the html.

Take the Dart AJAX controls for example - you simply code as you always do with code behind C#, and the controls take care of the implementation of the javascript. There is a wrapper as well for more custom options.

Guess I think this is neat stuff, but it seems to have reached full circle again: C#/ASP.NET saved us from crappy spaghetti vbscript and now moving forward we are right back in the HTML again.

I challenge Microsoft to create controls that use C# in the code behind to produce rich client applications - using output of compliant and standard html and script.

I've read your book and I love it - and in that book - the controls wire up the client side to the server side for postbacks. How about simply generating client side '__doCallbacks' in place of '__doPostbacks' ???

Nikhil Kothari

Posted on 9/13/2005 @ 7:18 PM

Steve, I totally see where you are coming from.

Let me say two things...
1. I agree server controls need to hide the script aspect of the functionality, and make it super simple to incorporate rich functionality.
2. To do so however, someone needs to write script - specifically the component author, whether it is us for the built-in controls or the 3rd party for custom controls.

What I will show with my talk is that Atlas makes script more approachable and give some platform characteristics (given the needs of a component writer). The first step to satisfy these requirements is to create the new script programming model. While seamless integration with asp.net is a key goal, so that the page developer does not have to know scripting, a nice fallout is that the script libraries can be used directly as well, by those who choose to do so.

Stay tuned... I will blog more after my talk on this subject. In the meantime, keep the comments coming.

Steve

Posted on 9/14/2005 @ 7:53 AM

Excellent.

I went back and did all the PDC lab and also did the sample on Guthrie's blog. All I can say is 'WOW' - so, what I hear you saying is that although we are currently typing up declarative tags - the end goal will be that you drop these items on a page, set it's properties similiar to how you can do with a 1.1 datagrid templates - and run it.

Fantastic.

Manu

Posted on 9/14/2005 @ 4:11 PM

I've seen the material available in the atlas web site and I have some comments (unfortunately I don't have time now to play with it to better understand the limits of atlas, only to read the docs, so please excuse me if any comment is not very appropiate)

1) Very little documentation and examples! I'm sure you were in a hurry but more material is needed.

2) One of the benefits of ASP.NET is the separation of UI and code (or at least that's what i say to my students ;-). With the samples you don't have that separation. Why not place all atlas related stuff in another file (for example MyWebPage.aspx.js) and then merge it in the final html?

3) Do the ajax controls downgrade gracefully in older browsers?

4) Generating xml for using declarative tags is a nightmare so I hope you'll make some cool UI abstraction tools to make developement easier and quicker.

5) In the examples you only called web services to get data from the server. Is it restricted only to web services? I love the way Ajax.NET library lets you call any method with the AjaxMethod attribute transparently. What similarities has atlas to the Ajax.NET library?

6) Will be better javascript debugger support or should we live with the current support via Debug->running documents?

7) There's a lot of pages made with ASP.NET 1.X so some kind of support for modifying standard webcontrols in the client side without much hassle would be really nice (easier said than done!).

That's all for now!

Nikhil Kothari

Posted on 9/15/2005 @ 9:21 AM

Manu, answers to your questions:

We will be updating docs and samples on an on-going basis.

You can place atlas script in a separate file today, eg. MyWebPage.aspx.script. Of course, another mechanism is to package code into reusable bits in separate js files and refer to them.

I'll be showing how a server control can conditionally opt-in into atlas rendering. This forms the basis of graceful degradation, but I think there is more thought needed here. Also, at this point we need to look at updated usage of browser versions to see whats the realistic thing to do.

Tools are a must. They will come... :-) This is for authoring components, designing pages, debugging apps.

You can call out to any web method - whether its in an asmx, or an aspx, or any other component on the server really.

We will be factoring our learning and feedback to incorporate atlas as an integral part of asp.net. It won't happen with the preview bits... but we are thinking nevertheless.

Manu

Posted on 9/15/2005 @ 4:50 PM

Thanks for your response Nikhil!

Those things that you're talking about Atlas are very nice. I can't wait to test it...

I hope you write another great book about ASP.NET 2.0 & Atlas!

Danny Simpson

Posted on 3/6/2006 @ 3:00 PM

Has anyone been able to create a <WebMethod()> in the code behind of an ASPX.VB file and calling that method from the client side? I have been able to successfully have the WebMethod on the same page as my html using a <script runat=server> tag and I used PageMethods.myMethod to successfully call the WebMethod. However, when I try to call a WebMethod in my aspx codebehind from my client side javascript such as Namespace1.Namespace2.Class.Method I get the following javascript error: Object doesn't support this method or property. I have looked everywhere for this type of solution but I have only seen solutions for a WebMethod() on the same page as an aspx file or seperated out as an asmx file.

KoolBeans

Posted on 4/21/2006 @ 12:58 PM

Try calling your method like this: PageMethods.Method();
That should do the trick.

Raj

Posted on 5/4/2006 @ 12:39 PM

Is there any official documentation for PageMethod/PageMethods on how to use it and what scripts need to be included in the page?

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