ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery

Summary: Brief of the talk and presentation given to Sacramento .NET User Group, plus links to shared resources.

Thanks to all who attended my talk at Sacramento .NET User Group on Tuesday. In case you did not attend the event, the discussion focused on developing intranet applications using ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery. We covered the following topics:

• Pros and cons of different technologies for building rich internet applications (RIA)
• Introduction to ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery
• ASP.NET UpdatePanel and UpdateProgress controls
• Using UpdatePanel with data-bound controls (such as Repeater)
• Pros and cons of using UpdatePanel with jQuery (and other alternatives)
• Adding AJAX and jQuery to an ASP.NET applications (walkthrough)
• Common problems and solutions for applications using ASP.NET AJAX, UpdatePanels, and jQuery
• Demos and references (tools, tutorials, videos, and more)

I uploaded the presentation to SlideShare:

Building intranet applications with ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery from Alek Davis

You can also download the original PowerPoint slides from Box.net.

To run the demo project, download the ZIP file containing the Visual Studio 2008 solution, extract the files, and open the solution (you will be prompted to create a virtual directory for the project).

UPDATE: The following article by Dave Ward explains the idiosyncrasy that I mentioned in the presentation (firing multiple events after partial postback) and offers ways to mitigate the problem (I will update the presentation and sample):

• $(document).ready() and pageLoad() are not the same!

Thanks, Dave!

Here are some additional references that did not make into presentation but you may find useful:

• Explore Rich Client Scripting With jQuery, Part 1 and Part 2 by Dino Esposito
• An intensive exploration of jQuery with Ben Nadel (screencast; also see Ben's blog)
• 30 Essential Controls by Theresa Neil (great collection!)
• Designing Web Interfaces by Bill Scott, Theresa Neil (book)
• 5 Popular CSS Frameworks + Tutorials & Tools for Getting Started by NOUPE
• Advanced Debugging with JavaScript by Chris Mills, Hallvord R. M. Steen
• Expandable panel inside a GridView by Amauri Rodrigues
• Client-Side Web Service Calls with AJAX Extensions by Fritz Onion
• Embed UpdatePanel inside Repeater by Daron Yöndem
• Why ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanels are dangerous by Dave Ward
• jQuery and Microsoft by Scott Guthrie
• 50 Most Beautiful Icon Sets Created in 2008 by Noupe
• jQuery Memory Leak in UpdatePanel by gstolarov
• 15 Most Interesting jQuery Tutorials by AjaxLine
• 10 Best jQuery Plugins - April 2009 by AjaxLine
• jQuery Puts the Fun Back into Browser Scripting by Rick Strahl
• 15 Resources To Get You Started With jQuery From Scratch by Jeffrey Way