ASP.NET AJAX Support in WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 SP1
I was doing some searches for SP1 and noticed a number of references with anticipation for SP1 awaiting the big occasion.
<update 12/11/07> With the release of WSS and MOSS SP1 a number of new articles are available in the SDK. Snipped from Andrew May's SharePoint Development Update post
New conceptual sections and topics that detail new features in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 include:
· ASP.NET AJAX in Windows SharePoint Services
This section provides overview information, installation instructions, and programming examples that introduce you to how Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX interacts with Web Parts. Topics include:
· Overview: ASP.NET AJAX and Web Parts in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
· Installing ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0 in Windows SharePoint Services Version 3.0
· Walkthrough: Creating a Basic ASP.NET AJAX-enabled Web Part
</update>
Here's a couple of older references: ASP.NET AJAX and SharePoint 2007 work together. Fitz even mentioned it a year ago in a post he did called Using ASP.NET AJAX in SharePoint sites: Tread lightly for now
There have even been a couple of posts in anticipation of support on the team blog and Mike Ammerlaan's blog on how to configure your SharePoint Server for ASP.NET AJAX including integration and performing the necessary installs and changes to your SharePoint Server and changes to the web.config to support ASP.NET AJAX Extensions.
The SharePoint team blog has a preview of the information in SP1 that mentions that ASP.NET AJAX and creating custom web parts with the toolkit and extensions will be supported at SP1. "You can now use the Microsoft AJAX 1.0 Control toolkit for Microsoft ASP.NET or the AJAX 1.0 Extensions for ASP.NET to create Web Parts for asynchronous post pack. Beginning with WSS 3.0 SP1 and MOSS 2007 SP1, developers can create custom Web Parts using AJAX." KB 941955 with a long title of "A Web Part that contains an ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 UpdatePanel control that uses the _doPostBack() function does not work when the URL of the hosting SharePoint Web site contains international characters." This KB has a great workaround to prevent the a regular postback request occurs instead of an asynchronous ASP.NET AJAX postback request.
The KB above includes code to add an UpdatePanel control to a Web Part and also uses the EnsureUpdatePanelFixups method to register the Script Manager control in the web part. Without the work around some caching of form actions and conflicts may occur.
Although you won't find any new ASP.NET AJAX in the features in the box, support for ASP.NET AJAX custom web parts does sound exciting to me.
If you're looking to build AJAX Solutions on SharePoint don't miss the codeplex solution referred to as the SharePoint AJAX Toolkit by Daniel Larson SharePoint MVP
Adam Buenz SharePoint MVP created a web part which rotates a list in a free AJAX SharePoint list rotator web part. Good chance to get your feet wet. I also like that he puts it in a solution deployment package WSP file. Good practice. :)
Get ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0 at http://ajax.asp.net/
