Design view problem w/Atlas and Visual Studio 2005

New to Atlas:Downloaded Atlas July CTP version and Atlas tools w/Visual Studio 2005 on Server 2003 os. I created a new project and .aspx webpage w/Grid1.master. I am unable to get design view to display without a gray screen appearing, so that I can put server controls in then select my data source. How do I get "design view" to appear without the gray screen?I have this code in my webpage:Help is greatly appreciated.

Open the master page in design mode - NOT your page...( I am assuming that you want to put the datasource controls in the master so all pages have access to them)

Ralph

Design Time Support

Hey gang.

I am new to ASP.NET and as well ASP.NET AJAX. I am loving how this framework can turn a regular form into an AJAX form with very little work.

One thing I am struggling to understand though is why AJAX controls are much much difficult to develop/handle. One example is it seems working with ASP.NET AJAX you have a ton of those gray boxes all over your designer window because none of the AJAX controls have any designer support. Is there any way to make this possible? Once the design surface begins not having any comparison to the live look the designer becomes irrelevant in my opinion.

Thanks and take care.

Anyone? One of the greatest strengths thus far building custom controls etc is the ability to see your page in the designer etc. When using TabContainer for example from the AJAX toolkit, all the controls you put inside of the TabPanel you cannot see in the designer, so my large form I cannot see what it looks like without running. This kind of goes backwards as far as Visual Studio experience is concerned in my opinion. No purpose for smart tags etc if all my contents are not visible etc.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks and take care.

When you create a Toolkit component, a designer class is created, so all the plumbing for creating a great design time experience is there. We've chosen not to focus on this for a few reasons:

1) Many of the components in the Toolkit are Extenders. For the PopupControl extender for example, what UI do you show at runtime

2) Most of the work in AJAX components is done via JavaScript by manipulating the DOM. The designtime isn't really running in the same context so you can't easily share any of the code.

3) There is a basic property-setting experience that the Toolkit does provide you. The Extender itself has a "TargetControlID" property which tells which component it's associcated with. Then if you click on the extendee, you'll see an "Extenders" category show up in the property browser that allows you to modify and set up properties via that experience.

4) The next version of the Web Designer will have a better design experience for extenders (we're currently working with them on what that should look like) but it's still not very UI focused.

So that's kind of where our thinking is at.

Hope that helps!

Shawn

Thanks so much for the reply!

I am glad design time in the future is being considered. I just find it dissapointing that some very basic design time is missing such as again TabContainer. I throw a big form into a TabContainer it should atleast render on the designer so I can see my form. This is just my opinion though. Also I think (possibly new version of VS?) extenders shouldn't be cluttered all over the designer. Perhaps if an extender is linked to a control, if I right click on that control a list of extenders is visible, or some sort of ExtenderDesigner interface.

I understand what your saying but, going from what I am learning in ASP.NET and how rich the framework is and how great the development process is, it seems if I move to heavy AJAX pages, I lose all of that and my designer surface will be all blank because my controls are contained in TabContainer's etc.

I also understand that its hard to represent everything since a lot occurs via Javascript but I think there may be a happy medium somewhere here. I am finding my WebForm just is a bunch of extenders in the designer and I cannot see anything but extenders.

Thanks again and take care.

We hear you. You're right - things like TabContainer are a different type of control and should have better design time support. It's easier for the controls than for the extenders.

On the topic of the extenders, yes, we'll be making these a little less obtrusive on the design surface - you're absolutely right.

Wow cool. Thanks :) I am really liking the new attitude on a lot of the new projects/CTP's.

Thank you so much for listening to the community. I just want to make sure these new technologies continue to be at the level all of MS's developer tools are at. The best available in my opinion.

I am actually working on a Form Generator control. The idea is you set a bunch of inputs, and set their parameters (required, validation type, invalid/missing messages) and the generator just creates all the objects required to get the job done. I am myself having a tough time with getting full designer support.

Is there anyone I can speak to about this? I was using the Dojo framework to do all the JS but now with alot of the ASP.NET AJAX controls I think similiar could be done with some of these. In addition to this functionality the next level would be to simply pass it a DataSource or something similiar and it would auto-detect the fields, data types and auto-gen a form etc.

I would really like a bit of help though since I am struggling with some of the designer based stuff. I have been posting on the newsgroups etc but haven't been getting any helpful insight.

I think if I could get a bit of help I would then release it or contribute it if its usable.

Do you know of someone/somewhere that would be the proper place to speak about design time support?

Thanks and take care.

Design time rendering of TabPanels?

Hi-

Are TabPanels supposed to render at design time? Mine aren't, even though other AjaxToolkit controls are on the same page and are rendering properly (like AccordionPanes and UpdatePanel). It doesn't seem to matter whether the TabPanels are on their own or within another AjaxToolkit control.

Thanks,

Neil

Hi,

Tabs doesn't have proper design support yet. It's one of the highest voted bugs and the Tabs author is busy working on a fix.

Thanks,
Ted

Design time problem when put my control in UpdatePanel

I put my viewer control into an UpdatePanel control, then use smart tag to create a source control and bind to the source control by specifying the source control ID. I use IComponentChangeService to add and remove the event handlers for events that add, change, remove or rename components. I can see the source control is Added, and my viewer control is Updated. But then I find all controls in UpdatePanel are Removed, and Added again. At last the UpdatePanel control is Updated. I expect the UpdatePanel should not remove and add again all its controls. Do you know why? And what's wrong with my control? Thanks!

Here is the call stack when its controls are removed:

System.Design.dll!System.ComponentModel.Design.DesignerHost.RemoveFromContainerPreProcess(System.ComponentModel.IComponent component = {CrystalDecisions.Web.CrystalReportSource}, System.ComponentModel.IContainer container) + 0x88 bytes
System.Design.dll!System.ComponentModel.Design.DesignerHost.Remove(System.ComponentModel.IComponent component = {CrystalDecisions.Web.CrystalReportSource}) + 0x11 bytes
Microsoft.Web.Design.Client.dll!Microsoft.Web.Design.IntrinsicElementDesigner.Destroy() + 0x57 bytes
Microsoft.Web.Design.Client.dll!Microsoft.Web.Design.ElementDesigner.Destroy() + 0x25 bytes
Microsoft.Web.Design.Client.dll!Microsoft.Web.Design.IntrinsicElementDesigner.Microsoft.Web.Design.Interop.IWebIntrinsicElementDesigner.Destroy() + 0x5 bytes
[Native to Managed Transition]
[Managed to Native Transition]
Microsoft.Web.Design.Client.dll!Microsoft.Web.Design.ElementDesigner.UpdateView(bool fSaveRegions) + 0x4be bytes
Microsoft.Web.Design.Client.dll!Microsoft.Web.Design.ElementDesigner.System.Web.UI.Design.IControlDesignerView.Update() + 0xa bytes
System.Design.dll!System.Web.UI.Design.ControlDesigner.UpdateDesignTimeHtml() + 0x38 bytes
System.Design.dll!System.Web.UI.Design.ControlDesigner.OnComponentChanged(object sender, System.ComponentModel.Design.ComponentChangedEventArgs ce) + 0x559 bytes
> System.Web.Extensions.Design.dll!System.Web.UI.Design.UpdatePanelDesigner.OnComponentChanged(object sender, System.ComponentModel.Design.ComponentChangedEventArgs ce) + 0x13 bytes
Microsoft.Web.Design.Client.dll!Microsoft.Web.Design.DocumentDesigner.OnComponentChanged(object sender, System.ComponentModel.Design.ComponentChangedEventArgs ce = {System.ComponentModel.Design.ComponentChangedEventArgs}) + 0x70 bytes
[Native to Managed Transition]
[Managed to Native Transition]
System.Design.dll!System.ComponentModel.Design.DesignerHost.System.ComponentModel.Design.IComponentChangeService.OnComponentChanged(object component, System.ComponentModel.MemberDescriptor member, object oldValue, object newValue) + 0x76 bytes
System.dll!System.ComponentModel.ReflectPropertyDescriptor.SetValue(object component = {System.Web.UI.UpdatePanel}, object value = {System.Web.UI.FileLevelPageControlBuilder}) + 0x196 bytes
System.Web.Extensions.Design.dll!System.Web.UI.Design.UpdatePanelDesigner.SetEditableDesignerRegionContent(System.Web.UI.Design.EditableDesignerRegion region, string content) + 0x6e bytes
System.Design.dll!System.Web.UI.Design.EditableDesignerRegion.Content.set(string value) + 0x11 bytes
Microsoft.Web.Design.Client.dll!Microsoft.Web.Design.ElementDesigner.Microsoft.Web.Design.Interop.IWebElementDesigner.SetEditableRegionContent(int indexRegion, string content) + 0x52 bytes
[Native to Managed Transition]

Does anyone know in what kind of conditions there will be a complete remove all and re-add all controls of an UpdatePanel?

And why Microsoft.Web.Design.Interop.IWebIntrinsicElementDesigner.Destroy() is called in the process of UpdatePanelDesigner.OnComponentChanged?

Thanks!

Design Question (Looking for your opinions)

I have a page that I need to call a method from my business tier. This method ussually will execute and complete quite quickly.

But because we are making and call to an external service. There are times where the network could be slow or the request gets sent but nothing comes back.

What I want to do is use ajax to make a call to the Business Layer. If it takes longer than say 5 secs. I want the ajax call to timeout and redirect to another page. Leaving

the process to complete on it's own (It doesn't return anything). The status of the "Async Job" will be checked somewhere else by the user.

Would this be an exceptable means of dealing with a long running task? We don't need the user to wait until it's complete.

Check out this for one example on long running queries...

http://www.west-wind.com/atlas/LongProgress/LongProgress.aspx

Maynot be exactly what you are looking for but...

That's a great example. Thank you very much.. I got it working :)

If I make the async call time out and call the function like so onTimeOut fires properly. If an error happens it goes to this method as well.

PageMethods.SendInfo(onComplete,onTimeOut);

If I make the async call error out OR time out and call the function like so PageMethods.SendInfo(onComplete,OnError,onTimeOut); both

timeouts & errors got the onError method.

Design question - UpdatePanel wrapping a GridView

As a general UI design question, I was wondering if it even makes sense (gives any improvement in the user experience, that is) to wrap a GridView in an UpdatePanel, considering that the page's sole purpose is to search for X and the grid displays the search results. There is not much that the user can do with in the page, basically search, view the results, sort them and go to next/previous page of search results.

Is it really worth it? What would be the pros/cons?

Well, I tend to avoid update panels in any case, but assuming you prefer that as your ajax delivery mechanism, I'd say that it still makes sense. Very few pages are completely devoid of anything but a data view; most have (at least) navigation to other pages and some form of branding. Most pages have quite a bit more in terms of markup, including images and other style elements. In short, yeah, there's still some payoff. I'd argue, actually, that a page with just one server-side control is actually a better cantidate for an updatepanel, b/c more server controls = bigger viewstate = less value from your update panel b/c of weight on the wire.

i'm all for wrapping the gridview in an updatepanel. I'm currently writing an app that is 100% postback-less and wrapped in update panels, and with my gridviews i am able to filter, sort, and page the results without a flicker. also, if done correctly, the amount of data transferred over the wire will be less than with a full postback, however, you will not save any memory space on the server, you may even use a little more but not a big deal.

Try the Asp.net Ajax Grid.http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/ajax/ASPNETAjaxGridAndPager.aspx

Design properties not available

When I follow the the sample video "Get Started with Atlas Control Kit" located at http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/8/f/e8fda3e9-3504-46e6-b032-a1744ed331bd/HDI-AtlasControlToolkit.wmv

I seem to have a problem. All is well until I try to access the Button after droping a ConfirmButtonExtender onto the page. It looks to be ok but when I try to open the design property for the button - ConfirmButtonExtender; nothing happens. Well, I take that back the little plus sign disappears. I would expect it expand and show the the CssClass and ConfirmText fields.

I get the same behavior when I try the TextBoxWatermarkExtender, but with that I get no expanding design properties for the TextBoxWatermarkExtender within the label.

Again I see the property but it simply does not expand to see the children.

Any help would be great, perhaps I have something hosed up in the install but all appeared to go normal - I followed the video verbatim.

Regard,
Bob Szymanski

Hi Bob -

This issue has been fixed in more recent builds of the Toolkit, which can be downloaded fromwww.codeplex.com

Thanks for your response.

I downloaded the toolkit just today from www.codeplex.com. Specifically http://www.codeplex.com/Project/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=AtlasControlToolkit&DownloadId=782

The versions I have are as follows:
Microsoft.Web.Atlas.dll - 2.0.50727.60725
AtlasControlToolkit.dll - 1.0.60731.0
Microsoft.AtlasControlExtender.dll - 1.0.60726.0

Do I have the most recent versions?

No - to get the fixes you'll need to pick up from the "source code" tab and download and build from there. Any of the more recent builds should be fine. Note Microsoft.AtlasControlExtender.dllwill no longer be needed.

Ok, I got it now, thanks!

Design approaches, AJAX of Master pages

Hello !

I'm migrating a website, all done with frames, from VS2003 to VS2005.
The layout of the website is a classical three columns with a header and a footer.

I want to remove frames but I would like advice on wether to use Master page or only AJAX.

Using AJAX, I would have one main page with the header and left column, clicking options on it
would load a HTML, CSS and javascript in the center column.
Fast and responsive but maybe hard to maintain and test.

Using a Master page, I guess I would have less changes to do since all the placeholders of the master page
would now be set as children of the master page. I haven't used Master pages yet so maybe
I don't understand the technology correctly.

Does anyone had the same concerns?
Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of this ?
Should I use a mix of the two approaches ?

My english is not perfect and I'm sorry for that, don't hesitate to ask for clearer details.

Thanks for any help !
Claude

You are correct - you do not understand the pratice of master pages correctly.

Masterpages in the Visual Studio 2005 enviroment are design time only. They are used as a way to manage a single layout across multiple content pages. When your site is complied or rendered, you end up with 1 page only. Masterpages should not be confused with frames in any way shape or form, they are not the same technology at all.

To understand this better - basically what you are doing is defining your layout, graphics, wrappers...etc in a master page. This is to maintain consistancy across all pages that would incorporate the design of that master page. So you can imagine a top header, a left column with links, and a center content area that you'd leave blank. In your content pages, you'd create the elements required to render content in that center area, without having to redesign, or duplicate the top and left column on each page. This is DESIGN TIME only.

When the pages are created and rendered. It'd be exactaly the same as designing your layout on each and every page. The pages are combined and sent down to the browser as a single html page, and nobody is the wiser.

To answer you're question. You should use Master Pages, AND javascript and Css (if thats your chosen technology) to render your pages. Using Masterpages for your layouts, and javascript css to render the center areas.

Master pages are "templates" that you build content pages around. They are not render time "frames".

design a form

hi,
im posting my requirements here,your suggestions are very much appreciated .
since im new to ajax tool kit im not much familiar about most of the controls,
could anyone can suggest me to use appropriate controls for my query?
in my system i have nearly 100+ forms,and different categories of users
.normally once new user is created,admin have to give access rights for the forms to new user.
now the admin doing this by using a form which got list of all the forms in my projects witha check box,
so admin have to manually check the appropriate name of the form for diff catagories of user and save it.
now the problem starts here,wen user create new forms then this access rights page need to be modified to add check box
control with new form name and data base need to modify to add new form name and access rights,
how can i make it automatically,meaning once i create new form,the form related info must add to access right
page with chk box, and also in data base

Thanks for any reply

Hi,

In my opinion, it's hard to fulfill your requirement by simply recommending a control. It's more about the design of your application.

My suggestion is you may consider using Role-Based access control.

The general idea is:

1. define several roles

2. define access privileges for each role

3. assign a role to each user

So that you just need to modify privileges for a single role and changes will be applied to all users with this role.

Please refer to this article for more information: http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/121901-1.shtml

NOTE:This response contains a reference to a third partyWorld Wide Web site. Microsoft is providing this information as a convenienceto you. Microsoft does not control these sites and has not tested any softwareor information found on these sites; therefore, Microsoft cannot make anyrepresentations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any softwareor information found there. There are inherent dangers in the use of anysoftware found on the Internet, and Microsoft cautions you to make sure thatyou completely understand the risk before retrieving any software from theInternet.

Hope this helps.