Can we have an issue on Ajax?
Last Post 02/27/2007 5:18 AM by John Braga. 14 Replies.
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John Braga
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01/15/2006 3:08 AM
    Hi Lee,

    Great site, great value.  I am currently wading through the excellent skins material.

    How about an issue on using the DNN implementation of callbacks?  With many examples.  There are quite a few .NET 2.0 articles showing AJAX on the net, but most dont work because Microsoft made late changes to the .NET beta.  And I find the ClientAPI Dotnetnuke documentation disappointing in this area.  They explain the principle in some depth, but not a single working example.

    I am sure that in year's time the majority of custom modules will use Ajax to give a better user interface, so it would be great to see some good coverage.

    best wishes

    John B
    Lee Sykes
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    01/16/2006 2:51 AM
    Hi John,

    Thanks for the feedback,
    Lee Sykes
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    John Braga
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    03/18/2006 3:51 AM

    Since I asked for an issue on Ajax I have spent some time looking at the ClientAPI functions within DNN, which give you Ajax-like ability to refresh data without a postback.  I have created my first page using the technique at

        www.stodden.org/Church

    Go to the "Services" page, and press on Previous and Next to see the results.

    I am sure that within a year most web pages will be using these techniques.

    John B

     

    Lee Sykes
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    03/20/2006 4:56 AM
    Hi John,

    Interesting stuff, you may want to double check everything is working ok on your site. - i was just having a look (10:35am GMT) and the site was loading very slowly, along with each click on the previous / Next buttons taking a long time to load. - It seems to be working ok now, but it maybe worth checking your log files to see if any problems are occurring.

    Thanks,

    Lee
    Lee Sykes
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    John Braga
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    03/20/2006 5:16 AM

    Hi Lee

    Thanks for the feedback.  You caught me at a time when another app on my server (not a website) was being "stress-tested" and I notice that SQL Server was taking up to 100% of the CPU time!   Now back to normal.  I need to check whether SQL Server Express can be "throttled back" to give other apps a chance...

    John B

     

    Andy Hock
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    02/05/2007 7:56 PM

    Hey John:

    You mentioned an issue on AJAX and DNN.  I looked at your Services page and was impressed.  Could you show us how you implemented this?  That would be very helpful.

    And I whole-heartedly agree on an issue which focuses on the ClientAPI and AJAX...it's a part of DNN that is sorely lacking in examples and one of the more complex, yet key components of DNN...especially in today's "Web 2.0" web applications.


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    Andy Hock
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    02/05/2007 7:58 PM
    Even just copying and pasting the code would help. I've just started looking into the ClientAPI again and investigating how to merge the ClientAPI with AJAX.ASP.NET controls...I can't find any information at all on the DNN site on if there is a project in place to merge these capabilities...

    Does anyone here know of anything?

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    Lee Sykes
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    02/06/2007 9:06 AM
    Hello Andy and John,

    Well a year has almost past and you were right that a lot of sites are now using Ajax! - I would like to create an issue on Ajax but at the moment I have no experience of implementing Ajax. - So if anyone wants to put together an article on Ajax please feel free to contact me and I will publish it on DNN Creative.

    Thanks,
    Lee Sykes
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    John Braga
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    02/17/2007 7:33 AM
    I can send you a writeup on a sample DNN module that uses Ajax (my Church Services module referenced in this thread) but I cannot claim to be any sort of expert on AJAX or the DNN ClientApi.  But I will get it together, and it may prompt someone else to contribute!

    Andy Hock
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    02/17/2007 7:44 PM
    Posted By John_Stodden on 17 Feb 2007 7:33 AM
    I can send you a writeup on a sample DNN module that uses Ajax (my Church Services module referenced in this thread) but I cannot claim to be any sort of expert on AJAX or the DNN ClientApi.  But I will get it together, and it may prompt someone else to contribute!

    Hey John:

    Well, that makes two of us who aren't ClientAPI experts.  I do know the Microsoft AJAX lib pretty well, and one glaring difference between the two is that I think the ClientAPI uses XML, while Microsoft uses JSON...this is a major hurdle if I'm correct, to getting the two to work 'together'.  Of course, the other option is to get them to work 'side-by-side', which is probably the better option.

    If you click on my name, you will find my email address.  Or I can email you.  I'd be happy to see anything you've done and use it as fodder to creating a ClientAPI tutorial.  You would, of course, get major credit in anything I right. ;-)

    I appreciate you responding to my post too.


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    John Braga
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    02/22/2007 3:49 AM
    Hi Lee

    Have a look at Vladan Strigo's site at:

       http://vladan.strigo.net/Home/tabid...fault.aspx

    Vladan offers a scriptmanager DLL and a method of altering web.config on your DNN 4.4 site so that you can use MS Ajax within a DNN module.  I tried it yesterday and it worked first time!

    I have yet to do some serious testing, but it seems to me to open a world of possiblities for DNN developers who want to use callbacks?  Should we use the DNN ClientAPI?  Should we use MS Ajax via Vladan's dll?  What are the overheads of altering DNN in this way?  What are the implications when MS Ajax upgrades?  What will the core team do in future DNN releases?  Will things fall over if you need to upgrade DNN?

    MS Ajax is a great bandwagon, and the number of controls in the toolkit is increasing at a great rate.  As a DNN developer by preference, I do not want to be excluded from these features?

    What do others think?

    John B
    Lee Sykes
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    02/22/2007 5:22 AM
    That's a useful site, thanks for the link
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    Andy Hock
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    02/27/2007 3:45 AM
    Posted By John_Stodden on 22 Feb 2007 3:49 AM
    Hi Lee

    Have a look at Vladan Strigo's site at:

       http://vladan.strigo.net/Home/tabid...fault.aspx

    Vladan offers a scriptmanager DLL and a method of altering web.config on your DNN 4.4 site so that you can use MS Ajax within a DNN module.  I tried it yesterday and it worked first time!

    I have yet to do some serious testing, but it seems to me to open a world of possiblities for DNN developers who want to use callbacks?  Should we use the DNN ClientAPI?  Should we use MS Ajax via Vladan's dll?  What are the overheads of altering DNN in this way?  What are the implications when MS Ajax upgrades?  What will the core team do in future DNN releases?  Will things fall over if you need to upgrade DNN?

    MS Ajax is a great bandwagon, and the number of controls in the toolkit is increasing at a great rate.  As a DNN developer by preference, I do not want to be excluded from these features?

    What do others think?

    John B

    Hey John:

    Great site.  Thanks.  I agree.  This is a bit of a quandary for the Core team, since much has been invested in the ClientAPI, but really, the only thing missing from the current ASP.NET toolkit is a menu control, which has nothing to do w/AJAX...but is the primary use of the ClientAPI that most people see and deal with.

    I've been busy upgrading some modules from 3 to 4 (I could write an article on just the issues involved in that!...but see another post response I made in the modules section to get an idea of my recommendation if you care), but I have been debugging the core ClientAPI code, in doing some research in order to write an intelligible article on the ClientAPI...

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    John Braga
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    02/27/2007 5:09 AM
    AndyHock wrote:
    but I have been debugging the core ClientAPI code, in doing some research in order to write an intelligible article on the ClientAPI...

    Andy, I would be very interested to read your article!  To my mind (and I hate to criticise DNN since we get it all for free!) the ClientAPI documentation is mostly at the wrong level and very obscure.   Jon Henning is obviously extremely competent, and has a great grasp of the complexities but his documentation is way over the heads of most of us, and the clientapi javascript code in particular is very difficult to follow (or is it just me)? 

    The difficulties are not helped by the very poor support for Javascript debugging in the major browsers.  If Microsoft were able to offer the same ease of debugging javascript as they do for debugging C# and VB there would be an enormous increase in  the amount of Ajax goodies available from the community.  Most AP.NET developers regard javascript with fear and loathing.

    Michael Washington has a good help site available at http://dotnetnuke.adefwebserver.com/ and his documentation is excellent!  He touches on the Clientapi, but does not go into great detail unfortunately.

    I want to see many more examples of using the dnn tab control, the dnntextsuggest etc, with a full explanation of the effect of setting various properties. 

    John B



    John Braga
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    02/27/2007 5:18 AM

    Andy,

    If you send me your email I can send you a simple article I have written on using the ClientAPI (clicking on your name doesn't seem to work).

    My email is johnb @ crownsys.co.uk (remove the spaces)

    John B



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