Integration
There are a few steps you have to follow to make your ASP.NET application AJAX-enabled. First, you need to add Ajaxium to your project and allow it to capture the page output. This can be done in two ways: if you prefer to use the designer - the integration via drag & drop is right for you - all you need is to drag the Ajaxium Processor from the toolbox and place it onto the page. If you opt for the code approach (also called integration via aggregation) - you can integrate Ajaxium into your project by adding only one line to the Page_Load event handler. Both ways are explained in detail here Integration with ASP.NET projects.
Traditional Controls
As soon as you have integrated Ajaxium into your ASP.NET page, your web-page becomes AJAX-enabled. Once it is done, you can see that all controls which have AutoPostBack property set to "True" are doing a hidden interaction with the server instead of going full roundtrip. All other controls, such as LinkButton or even the quite complex Calendar Control, always cause AutoPostBacks, so they gets AJAX-enabled immediately as well.
Timers
Ajaxium can automatically perform page updates with a user-defined interval by periodically sending AJAX requests from the client to an ASP.NET page. This timer functionality is introduced with Ajaxium v2.0 as part of the Ajaxium Processor.
In contrast to other possible solutions Ajaxium ensures a total control over the timer from the server side code. See the AJAX Timer tutorial for details.
Loading Notification
It is good practice to avoid sudden changes and controls flickering and improve the overall filling of the page by showing a progress indicator or simple loading panel during each AJAX-request.
Starting from version 2.0, the easiest way to add loading notification is to employ standard ASP.NET Panel control marked with the AjaxiumLoading attribute as described in the section Implementing loading notification with Ajaxium.
Your own controls
If you create an ASP.NET user control of your own and place it on the page it becomes AJAX-enabled. However, if your control uses a lot of JavaScript and already has some sort of AJAX functionality implemented, certain incompatibilities may occur. There are a lot of different ways to eliminate them, so don't hesitate to contact our support team and they will find the best possible solution for you.
If you create a new user control from scratch - we advise you to build it in the simplest way possible with all the functionality to be implemented in the server-side code. This approach guarantees not only full compatibility, but also increases development speed, since you do not have to waste time on JavaScript coding and debugging.
Ajaxium also provides an easy-to-use cross-browser API to allow you to manipulate page elements. You may use this interface for executing any custom actions before and after any AJAX request or timer event.
Third-party controls compatibility
Ajaxium supports most of third-party controls. The only problem that may occur is incompatibility with a control which already uses some AJAX functionality and relies on a static HTML environment. Most of controls behave correctly when the page updates via DHTML, but some vendors implement their controls in the simplest way possible. Since a lot of controls come in a compiled form with no source code available it makes it harder to eliminate such conflicts. But whatever the case, our experienced support team will help you get the job done.
Optimizing updates
If your web page is quite big, you may notice during content update a little flickering of controls in some browsers which perform an on-screen layout composition. We have observed such flickering in FireFox for Windows and Konqueror (Linux only) web browsers. To eliminate flickering and make page updates more effective Ajaxium employs standard ASP.NET Panel containers. When an update occurs, Ajaxium determines the minimal number of panels to be updated and performs the update. As a result, all browsers improve their response to this sort of updates and flickering goes away. Ajaxium supports nested panels so you can use them everywhere you need. The section, Optimizing page updates with ASP.NET Panels, provides an example of Panels usage.
How-To...
Step-by-step examples of integration of Ajaxium with projects freely available on the web:
