and

Published by

Wiley Publishing, Inc.
10475 Crosspoint Boulevard
Indianapolis, IN 46256
www.wiley.com

Published simultaneously in Canada

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Gibbs, Matthew, 1971-
Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax / Matt Gibbs and Dan Wahlin.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-470-10962-5 (paper/website)
1. Active server pages. 2. Web sites–Design. 3. Microsoft .NET. I. Wahlin, Dan. II. Title.
TK5105.8885.A26G532 2007
006.7’6–dc22
2007014621

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.

For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993, or fax (317) 572-4002.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, Wrox, the Wrox logo, Programmer to Programmer, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my family, for enduring the time I’ve spent on the platform and the extra hours I’ve spent writing about it. They’ve all seen demos of features as they were being developed and as I’ve written about them. Heather, Josh, Kelley, and even little Adam know more than they probably want to know about web development.

-Matt Gibbs

I’d like to dedicate this book to my wife, Heedy, and my two boys, Danny and Jeffery.

-Dan Wahlin

About the Authors

Matt Gibbs is currently the development manager of the UI Framework and Services Team. This talented group is responsible for ASP.NET and the AJAX Framework as well as the new Integrated Pipeline of IIS 7. Matt has been working on Microsoft web technologies since joining the IIS 4 team to work on “classic” ASP in 1997. He has co-authored several books on ASP and ASP.NET.

Dan Wahlin (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for ASP.NET and XML Web Services) is a .NET development instructor at Interface Technical Training (http://www.interfaceTraining.com). Dan founded the XML for ASP.NET Developers Website (www.XMLforASP.NET), which focuses on using XML, ADO.NET, and Web Services in Microsoft’s .NET platform. He’s also on the INETA Speakers Bureau and speaks at several conferences. Dan has co-authored/authored several different books on .NET, including ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks and XML for ASP.NET Developers. When he’s not writing code, articles, or books, Dan enjoys writing and recording music and playing golf and basketball with his wife and kids. Dan regularly blogs at http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin and http://blogs.interfacett.com/dan-wahlins-blog.

Acknowledgments

First, I have to acknowledge the support of my family. They have tolerated my working on this book while we watch movies together, and they no longer think it’s unusual for me to work on my notebook through baseball and basketball practice. My kids have even volunteered to do editing work for me. But I suspect that wouldn’t come close to what Sara Shlaer has done to help shape my ramblings. Eric Engler and Spike Xavier have done wonders to transform, augment, and verify the text I provided. They both deserve medals. And thanks to Jim Minatel for holding it all together. And thanks to the ASP.NET team for their dedication and hard work. They are passionate about creating the best platform and tools possible for application development.

-Matt Gibbs

Any time I get involved with a book, my family tends to suffer some, as I have to lock myself in my office for a while to get all of the writing done (hopefully before the deadline). But through all of the books and articles, they’ve always been very understanding and patient, so I’d like to thank them for their support...and calling me when dinner is ready. I’d also like to thank my parents, Danny and Elaine, for raising me in an environment that promoted education and a lot of other fun activities such as sports. I couldn’t have asked for a better family. I love all of you!

Finally, I’d like to thank Jim Minatel for getting me involved with the book and Sara Shlaer for all of her hard work editing my chapters. She put in a lot of time to make sure that what I wrote made sense.

-Dan Wahlin